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Stories from real life – the Tartu Art Museum exhibition presents cases of cyberbullying and possible solutions

Author: Annaliisa Post

Last week, the Tartu Art Museum opened an exhibition titled “The Secrets of the Leaning Building” which features a room focused on cyberbullying. The room “Stop Bullying – Make Your Message Safe!” was created in collaboration between Kristiina Treial, head Bully-Free School (KiVa), and Inger Klesment, media literacy specialist at the Baltic Engagement Centre for Combating Information Disorders (BECID).

The cyberbullying-themed room is filled with plywood trees which have excerpts from malicious conversations attached to them. The content of these conversations wasn’t fabricated by the organizers; instead, KiVa asked students from partner schools to share real-life instances of cyberbullying. Representatives from BECID and KiVa have added several different potential responses to each conversation. The visitors’ task is to find the most suitable response(s) to prevent the bully from causing further harm. “In addition, mental health specialists from Peaasi have prepared texts for each conversation that explain the underlying reasons for bullying. This helps visitors to understand why bullying happens in the first place,” explained Inger Klesment.

Foto: Gretel Juhansoo

Besides the bullying trees, visitors will also find a wall made of phone cases, where they can write about their biggest digital blunders. This encourages both children and adults to share and learn from each other’s online struggles and sad, funny, or even shocking incidents. The idea came from from this year’s Tartu [pre]opinion Festival, where Klesment set up a similar wall on Küüni Street. Klesment mentioned that the phone case wall was very effective back then and it gave them the confidence to use the same idea for this exhibition.

The exhibition is open until February 2. For those who can’t visit the exhibition in time, the displayed conversations will soon be available on KiVa’s website, which also serves as an extension of the exhibition. The website will soon feature videos from Maarja Punak, a communication specialist from the Police and Border Guard Board, where she shares a police perspective on the issue of cyberbullying and offers advice on when to involve the police.

The cyberbullying-themed room, together with the KiVa website, also serves as valuable material for teachers addressing the topic of cyberbullying in the classroom. For example, teachers can analyze the conversations displayed at the exhibition with their students or identify three actions from the videos that the police recommend in cases of bullying.

Thank you KiVa for the collaboration! Special thanks to Maarja Punak (Police and Border Guard Board), Peaasi.ee, CNC Studio, and Foxway OÜ for their support!

WP 1, task 1.4 & WP 4, task 4.1

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