There is the art of war and there is art in war. Ukrainian artists and cultural workers have found a thousand and one ways to get actively involved in the conflict that has been ravaging their country for the past month.
The fighters. The example of Volodymyr Zelensky, former comedian, actor, screenwriter and director who became president and now commander-in-chief of war-torn Ukraine, stimulated the active engagement of artists in his country. Prima ballerina Artyom Datsishin, who served in northern Kyiv, died early. The painter Volo Bevza, whose current exhibition in the capital was canceled at the start of the war, has transformed his workshop into a manufacturing center for anti-tank “hedgehogs”, where other welders like him work.
The creators. Artists continue to create in protest. The rapper Stepan Burban has recorded songs committed and enraged where he wishes the Russians to “go to hell”. The night the missiles fell in the center of her city of Kharkiv, destroying the theatre, the opera house and the main municipal square, Olia Fedorova broadcast a concert of Ukrainian music online from the bunker where she had taken refuge in the company of friends. “I want to show that we are proud, that we keep our spirits up, that we don’t give up and never lose hope”, she then explained to the magazine. The Art Newspaper. Photographer Julia Po and artist Elizaveta Litovka use social media to broadcast pictorial war diaries live from Kyiv. Writer Yevgenia Belorusets publishes daily texts on the publisher platform Isolarii and on the Artforum site.
The protectors. The country’s art, culture and heritage are also directly threatened by the war. The destruction of major cultural sites has begun, including that of the Donetsk regional drama theater in Mariupol, where hundreds of civilians had taken shelter. Culture workers have launched operations to protect monuments, institutions and collections throughout the territory. Works by Maria Primatchenko were saved from the flames after the Ivankiv Museum, north of kyiv, was destroyed, but around 25 of her canvases are said to be lost forever. Some of the most valuable pieces in the country’s collections actually belong to the heritage of neighboring Russia, which now threatens them directly with its missiles and bombs.
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