There has been plenty of Ukrainian content all over the world since the start of the full-scale invasion. However, Ukrainians tend to depict their homeland through colonial images detached from reality, such as kozaks wearing sharovary or huts with thatched roofs. On the other hand, we display constant war devastations and horrors. However, what is a new Ukrainian identity? In my artistic practice, I focus on the sacredness effects in shaping a contemporary Ukrainian identity. Thus, I look at the sharovarshchyna* problem from that perspective. Therefore, I incorporate individual elements of religious art while creating the war posters. I do that not for the sake of "canonising" the war through creating simulacrums of agrarian patriarchal societies. Conversely, it is a way for me to conduct the images’ deconstruction and question their limitations with religious connotations. I am thereby trying to highlight the archetype nature and emotionality of images and hence take a look at their ability to be relevant in modern realities.

*vulgar misrepresentation of Ukrainian culture and identity through pseudo-folk peasant and Kozak clothes, historical elements of everyday life etc.; a false and trivial view of traditional culture in general.