AN exhibition of photographs in a former York church has been bringing home the emotional impact of the war on Ukraine for those who have lived through it – or whose lives have been torn apart by it - in the last year.
The ‘Ukraine with Opened Eyes’ exhibition at St Michael’s in Spurriergate includes images by professional photographers who have been covering the war in Ukraine – but also by ordinary people who captured events on their mobile phones.
“We’re trying to show what’s happening in Ukraine now,” said Daria Furmanova of the York Ukrainian Society, which organised the exhibition.
The free exhibition – which ran from Tuesday to Thursday this week, ahead of today's anniversary of the Russian invasion, and will return from Tuesday to Thursday next week – includes some desperately moving images.
In one, an elderly couple, their bodies sagging with loss and grief, share a tender moment in front of the ruins of a building – possibly their home.
Others show shattered buildings – or simple moments of happiness snatched amid the misery, such as a young girl playing hide and seek.
The exhibition also includes a display by international charity Unissued Diplomas.
It shows photographs of Ukrainian students who were killed during the war, and were therefore never able to graduate – along with brief details of their lives.
One shows a photo of Tetiana Kotlub, aged 20, a ‘light-hearted, kind girl who was fond of travelling'. “Tetiana died in Mariupol on March 11, 2022, when a Russian artillery shell hit the house she was in,” says a caption.
Next to the photo is a stark note in large letters: “She could have sat next to you in class, but Russia killed her.”
Daria – who herself fled Ukraine with her eight-year-old daughter last year – said some of the photographs submitted by ordinary Ukrainians were too awful to be able to put on display.
A lot of Ukrainians who fled the country had actually deleted all their photos, she said, because they were too painful.
“But some people wanted NOT to forget,” she said. “This is something that changed all our lives. We must never forget it.”
The exhibition is not open today – it will return next Tuesday. But instead, this evening at 5.30pm, there will be a free screening at St Michael’s of a film, Double Immelman, which tells the story of the war in Ukraine’s Donbas region.
Also today, to mark the anniversary of the Russian invasion, there will be a vigil in the nave of York Minster starting at noon. And this afternoon, the University of York Ukraine Society has organised a public event at The Guildhall.
The event, which runs from 2.15pm to 5.30pm, will include an academic panel discussion and guest speakers including Calum MacDonald from Times Radio.
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