The edition of Voices Ukraine was initially planned before the full military invasion of Russia in Ukraine. The idea behind it was to create an archive of the stories of Ukrainian artists and cultural workers who were living with the constant fear of an attack on their country. Back then, political discussions about Russia, NATO, the USA, new “cold war” were running the headlines of the media, taking away the subjectivity of individuals, whose lives were directly affected by the situation. We wanted to provide a stage for expression, giving that situation a human face and re-appropriating the lost subjectivity. This was before. Before war.
Now the conditions of artists and cultural workers in/from Ukraine have drastically changed. Many of them have to spend their days in cellars, bomb shelters or in metro stations that have become their only safe home for now. Some of them are fleeing to other countries or to the Western part of Ukraine that is currently less affected by the war. Those who stayed are engaging in the volunteering, activism or territorial defense forces to protect their families and home.
With this edition of Voices we are creating a live online-archive of the stories of artists and cultural workers from Ukraine who are reflecting on the current situation in their homeland, their daily lives and routines, their feelings and dreams, fears and hopes through sound and voice, videos, personal archives, illustrations and other artistic practices.
We ask for your understanding that the contributions are published here in their original language or in English.
After the Revolution of Dignity, Ukraine experienced a boom in rave culture. Empowered by the energy of change and shocked by the war in the East of Ukraine in 2014, the youth was searching for their own identity and new ways of expressing themselves. +
More than half a year after the full-scale Russian invasion, music and art made no sense to me. I could not create anymore. +
Once it became clear that the war was going to last, and once more and more evidence of Russian atrocities appeared, I couldn’t stop thinking that it’s also our bones and blood that are in the ground, the bodies that may never be found or recognized… +
In the spring of 2022, the Ukrainian city of Mariupol was surrounded by Russian troops. They were using the weapons of mass destruction against the civilian population every day. +
„Make Like a Tree“ is a representation of travels expressed in music and photography created by Sergey Onischenko, a wanderer from Ukraine who has wandering around the world spreading his indie-folk tunes with a touch of non-conformism and Beat Generation ideas whilst exhibiting his minimalistic landscape photography along the way. +
After February 24, 2022, the perception somehow works in a different way. In trash bags, Ukrainians see corpses, in bread — food supply, in melodies they hear sirens, in loud sounds — explosion. +
As someone born and raised in the Donetsk region, I would like to shed some light on the language situation in the eastern regions of my country, since language has been central to Russia’s manipulative claims to be ‘defending the rights and will’ of the local people. +
I wake up every few hours amidst any kind of activity. Half-a-day barrages of catharses. Half a day of nothing. +
Hi, my name is Antonina. I was born in Prague, but later my family moved to Lviv, where I lived all my life, traveling around the cities of Ukraine. +
Kateryna Zotova was born in April 1987 in Kyiv, where she received her secondary and higher education. She met her husband in Crimea, and the family stayed in Kharkiv for the next 10 years. +
My life in peaceful times could hardly be called stable. I used to have quite a short horizon of planning and a lot of spontaneity. Currently, my life became extremely fragmented. +
“We are dancing – not cops” is a dance of victory. I won, because I have nothing to lose, because my nothing is governmental everything. In reality, I am just “another one”, a repeater in the information space. +
„A mine has a long whistle. A howitzer projectile sounds almost like a mine, but there is less time for escape. +
This is the video documentation of the performative act “The Crack of Friendship”, organized by artists and activists in Kyiv, Ukraine. During this event, organizers put up a temporary sticker in the form of a black crack on the „People’s Friendship Arch“ – a monument installed to symbolize the unity of the peoples of the USSR – in the center of the city. +
How much longer to wait? What to do now? How to live? Everything got mixed up. Everything has changed. +
Disclaimer - The following content may be disturbing and too intense for some viewers, as this art work refers to death, violence, and sexual abuse. Viewer discretion is advised. +
Yesterday we were looking for towels in Lviv when a rocket hit the Mariupol maternity hospital. Normalization, you are merciless.
The memory is erased. What was yesterday, what was the day before? +
254 is Maria Kulikovska’s number as a registered refugee from the occupied Crimea since 2014. On July 1, 2014, Maria Kulikovska held an unauthorized performance during the opening of the biennale of contemporary art Manifesta’10, which took place in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, Russia. +
Hi!
My name is Sankova Daria. I’m an artist. I draw, do ceramics and take photos.
I study at the faculty of ceramics in Lviv (Ukraine). +
I left Luhansk in 2014. The refugee status is not new for me. Now, for the tenth day of the Russian invasion I feel like I’m stuck in the evil loop +
I woke up at 5 am in Kyiv because I heard an explosion. I got up immediately, took a quick shower, prepared cash and documents, and laid back in my bed hoping it was a noise coming from the dream I was seeing. +
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vzhvzhvzhvzhvzhvzhvzhvzhvzhvzhvzhvzhvzhvzhvzh* — what is that? Sirens? Grads? Russian air forces? Oh, it is a refrigerator. +
„Сон славянск“ 25/02/2022, Friday Night
At night, I am on the third train commuting from Kyiv to the western Ukraine. My girlfriend and I bought the tickets at around 6 am right after we heard explosions from the shelling in the distance and read all the news about the Russian invasion on social media. +