cpt_fire

Fire

VAINGLORY

Published: September 16, 2025

Artists on the front line
Witness against war’s shadow.

 

Fresh graves in Bucha, Ukraine — 10 September 2022. Photograph © Bréon Rydell.

Part III of Bréon Rydell’s Ukrainian Trilogy, Vainglory confronts the lethal vanity of imperial power—the myths, medals and pageantry used to disguise conquest as destiny. Written and performed by Rydell, the poem strips war of its manufactured grandeur and exposes what remains: shattered lives, ruined cities and a leader’s delusional pursuit of historical greatness. Rooted in Russia’s assault on Ukraine but reaching beyond it, Vainglory is both an indictment and a warning: tyranny may command spectacle and destruction, but it cannot turn brutality into glory or erase the resistance of those who refuse to surrender their freedom.

 

NEW FILM EDIT IN PRODUCTION

Heidelberg — at the threshold

Published: February 14, 2020

the old myths driving him on

Bréon Rydell dropped out of school. No certificate, no safety net. He carved his own syllabus — a hidden flow: protest songs, folk, jazz and blues, even Mahler under big skies, Paolozzi’s Chelsea studio, Jung and Campbell in the margins. Heidelberg opened its doors as if to say — yes, this counts.

At Heidelberg, the classroom turned into a sparring ground. Art, literature, philosophy, politics — nothing stayed abstract. Bréon brought lived experience, and the professors knew it.

At the HCA Winter Seminar on 14 February 2020, Schloss described Rydell as “probably the most radical voice to teach in a German university since the seventies.”

Heidelberg appointed him its  First Expert in Residence, then a Visiting Fellow — proof that the hidden syllabus carried weight.

From there, the work widened — poetry, theatre, music — the same hidden syllabus moving out into the world, carrying its fire.

THE AMERICAN DREAM AT HCA

Published: February 14, 2020
Bréon Rydell with Prof. Dietmar Schloss, teaching at the HCA.

AN ARTIST  OF WITNESS, WARNING  AND TRANSFORMATION

Heidelberg didn’t just open its doors — it handed Bréon Rydell a desk at the Center for American Studies, the university’s hub for U.S. culture and politics. Rydell sketched a course — The American Dream in the 21st Century: Where Are We Now?

He co-taught with Professor Dietmar Schloss, who recognised in Rydell both vision and an original mind.

Schloss was the first academic to read Rydell’s early poems. He called them “quest and initiation literature,” and spoke of them as works of resonance.

In the classroom, Rydell would leave a moment of silence after each poem — Schloss said that helped students find their own voice. With a wry smile, he once remarked: “Many of the students talk about a revolution. I think Bréon Rydell would quite like that.”

 

Project Freedom

Published: January 23, 2023

FROM THE HEART OF UKRAINE

In early September 2022, independently, Bréon Rydell made his way, via Poland, to Ukraine, where he would witness the devastation of the war for himself. Here was a country fighting for its survival and freedom.

Bréon Rydell, in Kyiv, with Armed Forces of Ukraine Liaison Officer, Sept 2022.

Correspondence Heidelberg, May 2023

Bréon —

I have watched your films on the war in Ukraine and am deeply moved. You show what art can do, placing your full confidence in it, and inspiring others to act.

Your public speaking is persuasive, as the Sky interview revealed. Witnessing the damage in Ukraine must have been difficult, but it is this lived experience that gives power and truth to your art.

As I said when we first met: we needed you at Heidelberg, and we need you in Germany today.

“You are the light, the spark, the spirit of inspiration. The world needs you, your words and vision, now more than ever.”

— Prof. Dietmar Schloss.
University of Heidelberg.

WATCH THE FILM 

 

stand up for Ukraine

Published: September 10, 2026
Fresh graves in Bucha, Ukraine — 10 September 2022. Photograph © Bréon Rydell.

Part I of Bréon Rydell’s Ukrainian Trilogy, Stand Up For Ukraine began as an open letter written in Cuba on 22 February 2022—two days before Russia’s full-scale invasion—and published on 10 March. It is a powerful urgent defence of independence, democracy and resistance, and a rejection of silence and appeasement. Written and performed by Bréon Rydell, with a soundscape by Ukrainian artist Anna Heller and award winning Scottish composer Ross Whyte, the film premiered online through the Finborough Theatre on 4 July 2022 and led to his invitation to Ukraine later that year.

WATCH THE FILM 

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