Explosions wake me up on the day when I am to moderate the opening of a photographer-turned-soldier’s exhibition in Kyiv. I go to the bathroom, the safest place in the flat, where an extra wall might protect me from debris and shattered glass. While applying mascara, I monitor the types of missiles Russia is firing at the capital of Ukraine. This time, ballistics. In a few hours, I will learn that the morning attack has wounded 39 and killed four civilians in two residential districts of Kyiv.
It is day 713 of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The landscape photographer Denys Kryvyi whose exhibition I am about to open tonight won’t be with us. He took up arms to defend Ukraine and was killed in Bakhmut in 2023. His photographs of the nature of southern Ukrainian regions, where Cossacks once lived, now speak about the urgency of protecting one’s landscape. The story of Denys is now part of the People of Culture Taken Away by the War, a series of literary portraits I curate for PEN Ukraine and The Ukrainians Media to preserve the fabric of national memory and bear witness to Russia’s genocidal onslaught.
Continue reading my new essay for ISPI.