Ukraine ablaze

Nova Kakhovka occupied

Technique:

Black pencil, paper

Year:

2022

The author uses the example of her hometown to show life under occupation, and the example of his family to show the everyday aspect of this life. The project envisions two sides of life in the city going through the occupation, the political side (which includes everything that can be seen in the news, local social media groups, i.e. war consequences, remains of shells and military equipment, establishing Russkiy mir (Rus. “Russian world”), etc.) and everyday life side (depicting people’s routine, their new reality, habits, rules, adjusting to new circumstances and conditions). The main idea was also to show that when looking at a newsfeed, people never see the flip side of any events — real human lives.

In the version of the series shown, between the two parts there is a central image with "noise" created from the texture that is also present in the other drawings. The noise here symbolises the "unknown" that pervades life under occupation, so it is a representation of all the events that are still "unknown, undiscovered". Everyone can guess about it, but while the city is under occupation, there is no photographic evidence of these events.

In the exhibition, the series is also complemented by a bunch of empty templates of future images placed on the table. The occupation is ongoing, so there will be more and more war crimes, political events, and their consequences.

Viktoriia Rosentsveih. Nova Kakhovka occupied