The experience of war is extremely difficult to convey to those who have not lived through it. Yet since the First World War, intellectuals and artists have tried to express it, appealing to the thought, imagination, and emotions of their audiences. Today, the difficulty of conveying the experience of war and the fragility of our world to those who have not experienced it personally lies in the fact that contemporary wars seem very distant, and their impact is not obvious outside the conflict zone.
For Ukraine, the struggle for sovereignty and freedom has been ongoing for eleven years, of which the last four have been a full-scale war. The exhibition Voices from Ukraine presents works that capture the diverse personal experiences of Ukrainian artists. They view the war from many very different perspectives and positions. These stories, told in different ways and in different languages—through documents as well as through symbols and metaphors—give the war sharper contours. Through them, one can see and hear real, living people with their pain, losses, suffering, doubts, imperfections, but also dignity and readiness to resist. From generalized abstraction, the war in these stories becomes more concrete and personalized, and thus accessible to perception—something that can be related to one’s own life and experiences, one’s own pain and losses, while being physically, emotionally, and mentally far from the war, seemingly at a safe distance.
Yet today, distances are very relative, security is deceptive, and the ability to come closer to others and to see what is shared within multiplicity—so as to understand one another—requires sensitivity and effort. Just as searching for complex answers to controversial questions, engaging in dialogue, showing solidarity, and respecting differences all require effort. The works presented in the exhibition also invite discussion about why these efforts are worth making. What future is already being lost today from the perspective of wartime experience? What future can be imagined as likely and shared? Is understanding and dialogue worth the effort? Voices from Ukraine offers a polyphony in which every voice matters.
The space of listening and reflection requires sensitivity and tenderness. It is not always easy to open oneself to another’s pain. Yet for those who share the vision of freedom as the highest value, the Russian-Ukrainian war cannot and long ago ceased to be merely a local and distant affair of Ukrainians.
Curators: Daryna Skrynnyk-Myska and Waldemar Tatarchuk