What twenty years of running cultural events taught me about people

After more than twenty years of working with people, I can honestly say that culture has never been only culture.

People do not come to an event only for the play, the film or the concert. They come for the emotion, for the belonging, for the feeling that they are part of something.

Over the years I have met thousands of people. There were all kinds of destinies, several generations and a great many life stories. But one thing they all have in common: everyone needs connection.

Especially in the diaspora. Here people often live very fast: work, obligations, routine… Day after day, it can happen that a person drifts away both from others and from themselves.

That is why I have come to understand that an audience does not only remember the programme — it remembers the atmosphere and how it felt. That makes my task bigger and my responsibility more serious. I have also learned that people sense sincerity far more than they sense perfection. You can have a big production, but if there is no emotion, the audience recognises it immediately.

And the other way round. Sometimes it is the very smallest events that create the most beautiful energy.

Perhaps that is the greatest thing I have learned through my work with HELSE: what people lack today is not only entertainment. What they lack is belonging.

That is exactly why culture still holds so much value for me — and why my work still has meaning and importance.

— Evica