Discussion format: online roundtable bringing together Nordic and Eastern European perspectives on public art in politically sensitive contexts
Project: ”Nordic Insights”
Participants: Niels Righolt (Director, Danish Center for Arts and Interculture, Copenhagen) facilitated a conversation between Sergiu Musteață (Historian & Professor, Pedagogical State University, Chișinău, Moldova; Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Moldova) and Alba Baeza (Curator, Public Art Agency Sweden).
The Weight of Soviet Ghosts: Moldova’s Monument Crisis
Sergiu Musteață opened the discussion by addressing Moldova’s unique predicament: a nation born from Soviet occupation in 1940, still navigating the shadows of that legacy three decades after independence. The historian painted a vivid picture of Chișinău’s public squares, where Soviet monuments continue to dominate, creating daily friction in a society torn between competing identities.
At the heart of Moldova’s crisis lies a question more profound than aesthetics: are Moldovans a distinct nation, as the Soviets insisted, or Romanians by another name? This identity debate, deliberately constructed through Soviet policies including the forced adoption of Cyrillic script, makes every monument a potential flashpoint. When citizens walk past Lenin statues or Soviet war memorials, they’re not just encountering art—they’re confronting contested versions of their own identity.
The Pushkin Paradox: When Poetry Meets Politics
The roundtable’s most compelling case study centered on Chișinău’s monument to Alexander Pushkin, the 19th-century Russian poet. After Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, this statue became a lightning rod for public anger. Should it be removed as part of “decommunization”? Or does removing a monument to a Romantic-era poet—who himself had Moldovan connections—represent cultural vandalism?
Musteață argued for nuance: Pushkin wasn’t Soviet, though the Soviets instrumentalized his legacy. The monument’s 1885 installation predated Soviet power, yet its prominence in the city center reflects Soviet cultural policy. This complexity, he insisted, demands professional deliberation, not political expediency. Instead, Moldova has witnessed rushed removals, inadequate documentation, and decisions driven by electoral calculations rather than historical understanding.
The historian shared troubling examples: monuments dismantled without proper archival photography, public debates reduced to simplistic binaries, and regional divisions deepening as pro-Russian Transnistria and Gagauzia resist changes embraced in Chișinău. Each removal risks becoming another weapon in ongoing identity wars rather than a step toward genuine reconciliation with the past.
Swedish Serenity: The Art of Taking Time
Alba Baeza’s presentation offered a striking counterpoint. In Sweden, commissioning a permanent public artwork typically requires five to ten years. This isn’t bureaucratic sluggishness but deliberate democratic process. The Public Art Agency Sweden, a state-funded institution operating since 1937 with an annual budget of approximately €10 million, manages over 25,000 artworks across the country using principles almost unimaginable in Moldova’s volatile context.
The Swedish model privileges artistic freedom above political preference. When artist Lars Englund created a controversial, unflattering statue of King Carl XVI Gustaf, public debate erupted—but the work was ultimately installed. This reflects Sweden’s deep-rooted trust in professional expertise and democratic institutions, where politicians delegate cultural decisions to specialists rather than weaponizing heritage for electoral gain.
Baeza described a system where communities engage through structured consultation, artists lead conceptual development, and quality trumps ideology. Temporary installations allow experimentation; permanent commissions undergo exhaustive site-specific research. The goal isn’t merely decoration but democratic cultural access—ensuring art belongs to everyone, not just museum visitors.
Contested Histories in the Land of Consensus
Yet even Sweden faces its own heritage reckonings, albeit more subtle ones. Baeza acknowledged growing questions about whose stories Swedish monuments tell. Indigenous Sámi communities demand representation. Colonial histories require examination. New immigrant communities seek reflection in public space. Gender imbalances in commemorated figures spark debate.
These challenges don’t involve dramatic removals of occupying powers’ monuments. Instead, they concern gradual shifts in a society questioning its historical narratives. The Swedish approach—slow, consultative, trust-based—works within stable democratic institutions and relative social cohesion. But Baeza admitted feeling almost envious of more “energizing” contexts like Moldova’s, where stakes feel more immediate and transformative change more possible.
The Democracy of Monuments: Trust, Time, and Transformation
The roundtable’s most provocative theme emerged around institutional trust. Sweden’s system depends on politicians trusting cultural professionals, who in turn trust artists. This chain of delegation requires stable democratic norms and faith that expertise trumps populism. Moldova, by contrast, operates in constant crisis mode, where geopolitical pressures, identity conflicts, and electoral cycles compress timeframes and inflate stakes.
Can Moldova adopt Swedish-style processes when Russian troops occupy Transnistria and disinformation campaigns target every cultural decision? Should it? Musteață argued passionately for professional involvement—historians documenting before removal, museums preserving controversial works, transparent community dialogue—but acknowledged political realities often override such ideals.
Both speakers agreed on core principles: documentation matters, context differs, erasure helps no one, and dialogue beats demolition. Yet implementing these principles requires resources Moldova lacks and stability Sweden takes for granted. The conversation revealed not just different approaches but fundamentally different conditions for cultural decision-making.
Archives Over Erasure: Building Memory Museums
One concrete proposal gained traction: creating dedicated spaces for removed monuments. Rather than destroying Soviet statues or abandoning them in warehouse corners, Moldova could establish “memory museums” contextualizing this heritage. Such institutions exist in Budapest’s Memento Park and Lithuania’s Grūtas Park, offering precedents for transforming propaganda into educational resources.
Musteață emphasized documentation’s urgency. Before any monument disappears, professionals should create comprehensive archives: photographs from multiple angles, historical research on commissioning and installation, oral histories from community members, analysis of artistic and ideological elements. These records ensure future generations can study their heritage critically rather than inheriting only current political narratives.
This approach acknowledges that monuments tell multiple stories: about the regimes that erected them, the artists who created them, the communities that lived with them, and the societies that chose removal. Preserving these layered histories, even of oppressive regimes, serves education better than destroying evidence.
Future Commissions: Beyond Reactive Heritage Politics
Alba Baeza’s work focuses predominantly on commissioning new art rather than managing old controversies. This future-oriented approach offers Moldova an alternative to endless debates over Soviet monuments: what new works should occupy public spaces? Whose stories deserve commemoration? What artistic languages speak to contemporary Moldovan identity?
Sweden’s artist-led commissioning process, with its emphasis on site-specificity and conceptual depth, could inspire Moldova’s efforts to create post-Soviet public art. However, this requires resources, institutional capacity, and political willingness to let artists lead rather than politicians dictating memorial content. The contrast between Sweden’s decade-long processes and Moldova’s crisis-driven decisions highlights divergent possibilities for cultural development.
Dialogue Across Divides: The Roundtable’s Broader Significance
The Nordic Insights initiative bringing these voices together represents more than academic exchange. It demonstrates how European cultural professionals can learn from radically different contexts. Sweden’s stability and Moldova’s volatility aren’t simply opposite conditions but complementary perspectives on heritage challenges facing democracies at different developmental stages.
Niels Righolt’s facilitation emphasized this reciprocal learning. Nordic countries offer models of institutional trust and long-term thinking. Eastern European nations provide urgent reminders that heritage battles matter existentially when geopolitics threaten sovereignty. Neither can simply adopt the other’s approaches, but both benefit from understanding alternative possibilities.
The conversation also revealed shared vulnerabilities. Even Sweden faces populist pressures questioning expert authority. Even Moldova produces thoughtful professionals advocating nuanced approaches. The gap between Nordic and Eastern European heritage management isn’t unbridgeable—it reflects historical circumstances and institutional development, not essential cultural differences.
How We Treat Our Monuments Reveals Who We Are
The roundtable ultimately suggested that how societies handle contested monuments reveals democracy’s vitality. Do politicians trust cultural institutions? Do communities engage meaningfully or mobilize tribally? Do professionals document thoroughly or rush ideologically? Do citizens tolerate artistic freedom or demand conformity?
Moldova’s monument debates reflect its democratic fragility: geopolitical pressure, identity divisions, institutional weakness, and rushed political decisions. Sweden’s deliberative processes reflect its democratic maturity: stable institutions, trusted expertise, patient timelines, and tolerance for controversy. Both face real challenges; neither offers perfect models.
What emerges most powerfully is the recognition that monuments aren’t static objects but active participants in ongoing negotiations about identity, memory, and belonging. They change meaning as contexts shift. Yesterday’s liberation monument becomes today’s occupation symbol. Yesterday’s uncontroversial king becomes today’s problematic patriarch. This fluidity demands humility from all participants—politicians, professionals, artists, and citizens alike.
Conclusion: Continuing Conversations
As the roundtable concluded, participants committed to ongoing dialogue. Oana Nasui announced monthly sessions continuing these exchanges. Alba Baeza expressed hope for future collaboration and even visits. Sergiu Musteață emphasized that communication and mutual learning offer the best path forward for societies grappling with difficult heritage.
The conversation demonstrated that contested monuments aren’t problems to solve but conditions to manage—ongoing negotiations requiring professional expertise, political courage, community engagement, and international solidarity. No single approach works universally, but sharing experiences across contexts enriches everyone’s understanding.
In Moldova’s monument battles and Sweden’s careful commissions alike, we see democracies working out fundamental questions about who they are, what they value, and how they want to be remembered. These conversations, however difficult, represent democracy in action—messy, contentious, but ultimately generative dialogues about collective identity and shared futures.
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Host: Oana Nasui, cultural researcher
The “Nordic Insights: addressing cancel culture in public spaces through artistic dialogue and cultural innovation” project is implemented by the Formare Culturala platform from Romania. It is funded by the Nordic Culture Fund through the Globus Opstart+ program, which supports artistic and cultural projects that connect Nordic countries with other regions of the world, encouraging long-term collaborations and networks that promote artistic development and experimentation.
Formare Culturala is a private resource platform for cultural and creative industries in Romania initiated in 2012 that produces cultural debates, trainings, cultural networking sessions and knowledge transfer projects in the creative and interdisciplinary sector.
Center for Kunst og Interkultur (CKI) is a Danish organization dedicated to audience development, promoting interculturality and supporting cultural democracy. The organization’s fundamental values are based on the 2005 UNESCO Convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions.
Intercult is an independent production and resource organization based in Stockholm, operating in Sweden and Europe since 1996 as an initiator of collaborative cultural projects and developer of intercultural competences. The organization functions as a European Resource Center for Culture.
