The Bigger Picture and the brain cell

By Anna Sushko

I have a brain cell at home--one made of green fabric, filled with wadding and looking sort-of cute, with sewn-on eyes. It's a kind-of neuron cuddly toy. My friends gifted it to me, after we started dreaming about neurons, because we learned so much about them for our final biology exam.Today it is my emotional support neuron. When I have so much to do for university that my brain refuses to process any more information late at night, I hold one end of the neuron to my head and the other end to the computer and I hope that the textile axon of the cuddly toy comes to life and really does transfer information via electrical signals right into my brain.

In the first week of Peace Lab, I regularly relied on the assistance of my emotional support neuron. During this time we had to read around 420 pages about the history of Kosovo, the political entanglements, the current situation and the principles of peace and security activities. In addition, we prepared and held presentations, which meant additional background reading. The most complicated part was that we had to remember all this information, because on the first day of the second week we wrote an exam based on all the 420ish pages as well as the presentations and what we talked about in class. Needless to say that my emotional support neuron played an important role in the study sessions, which went well into the night and consumed the entire weekend.

This historical painting depicts the battle of Kosovo field from 1389. Thanks to Peace ab I could tell you in detail why this was an important event. I have no idea what happened in 1389 in Germany or Russia.

However, after this first week I felt like I knew more about Kosovo’s history than about German and Russian history put together, which are the places my family comes from. When we started to meet civil society organizations, representatives of international institutions and even of the Kosovo government via zoom, I felt like everything they told us became embedded into a pre-exiting context in my brain. The conversations brought to life what I had only read about theoretically. They added many unknown details and personal stories and put so much more depth to what I thought I understood before. I am very thankful that the people we talked to took the time to share their knowledge, perspectives and experiences with us. 

Some conversations have been very sobering and distressing, others have been inspiring and awe inducing. Sometimes, when the workload at university is very high, I start to feel resentful, because I have to push myself beyond my limits. Yet in Peace Lab I was glad that I was made to prepare so thoroughly in the first week, because this was the best I could do to show respect for the time of the people who met with us over zoom. Hearing their perspectives brought peacebuilding closer to me than anything I had read in university.

Community Building Mitrovica, New Social Initiative and the Center for Social Group Development, emphasised or at least mentioned the importance of international attention, awareness and pressure, when they talked to us. However, friends of mine, who are already interested in international politics, human rights and human security, know surprisingly little about Kosovo. Just as shocking, I knew not much substantial about the country, its historical background or the current situation, before I took Peace Lab. Therefore, for my group project, we wanted to synthesise all we had learned during the class, combining the theoretical and historical input from the first week with what we had heard during the meetings and present it in an approachable format. So we developed a digital exhibition, called "The Bigger Picture". This is a space where people can move through and engage with the beautiful landscapes, diverse cultures, moving history and changing present that is Kosovo.

We created exhibition rooms which inform you about education, the governance system, the role of international engagement, what peacebuilding looks like and the importance of dialogue, in an interactive way, supported by engaging pictures. Do you know what it looks like when elections are thoroughly boycotted by one group and what the consequences for democratic legitimacy are? In our exhibition you can see it and read about it. As an unexpected gift, a peacebuilder from a civil society organisation sent us her personal account of why she became a peacebuilder and why she is passionate about it. We were able to include her testimony in the peacebuilding room.

The "Governance" room in the exhibition 

Talking to these different stakeholders felt very enriching. As I wrote before, I am grateful that all those people shared their perspectives and experiences with us and that they took the time. With this exhibition, we wanted to honor that but also ensure that some part of this valuable insight becomes accessible to even more people. Hopefully, others will feel compelled to inform themselves about Kosovo. Maybe this project will be a small contribution to directing more attention towards the country and the multiplicity of voices and perspectives within it. Moreover, we were aware that this would be the last Peace Lab class, and we wanted to create a project which might facilitate access to at least a fraction of the many perspectives and education we had experienced.

Least but not last, we made this exhibition, so you can learn about Kosovo without having to read and remember 420 pages, because I am not sure how you would accomplish that without an emotional support neuron.