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Galereya Neotodryosh

3 Jun 2022

Project: «14-8-22»

14-8-22 is an online magazine that aims to showcase the personal stories of young artists from Luhansk and Donetsk regions during the outbreak of the Donbass war eight years ago and their experiences leading up to the full-scale invasion. The magazine will be presented in the form of a website and will feature artistic works that portray the experiences of the artists who have been living through the war for the second time. The materials will be disseminated via social media channels, and the project will highlight around 100 young artists and extend financial support to them.

Additionally, an offline presentation of the project will take place in Lviv, and a series of online presentations in partnership with different art institutions throughout Europe will be launched. By sharing the narratives of these young artists, 14-8-22 is not only providing a platform for their art to be seen but also offering a means of financial support.

The team

The 14-8-22 team consists of seven members, six of which are refugees from Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Only their translator into English, Maryana, was born in Rivne, “but now we can say for sure,” the group says “that every member of the team became a forced migrant due to a full-scale war.”

The editor of the online archive, Slava Bondarenko, is the author of Plus Minus Infinity, a local magazine about contemporary Donbas culture. In 2014, he survived captivity when he tried to enter occupied Luhansk, his hometown. “He was tortured by Russian mercenaries,” we are told “but this did not break him.”

“Each member of our team has suffered in one way or another from Russian aggression, our cities have been occupied, and part of the team no longer has a home. For us, the war is an important topic, since we caught it back in 2014, which is why the creation of an online archive with personal stories of young artists and residents of Donbass is also a personal project for us.” 

Safeguarding stories 

The individuals who contribute their stories to the magazine are experiencing the active stage of the war for the second time, the first time being in 2014. Moreover, a considerable percentage of these people have become internally displaced persons and lost their homes for the second time. While the team compiles these personal stories, they recognise the personal trauma of the authors and the difficulties this poses in articulating and expressing their experiences. Therefore, it is not always feasible to ensure constant updates to the website, but the stories can be preserved in an archive to document the traumatic experiences and retell the story of Ukraine’s war through the perspectives of those who witnessed it as children and grew up with it.

Stories, like the name of the project, are divided into parts, each with a specific year range. The first part, marked as “14,” refers to the year 2014 when Russia started its war against Ukraine, leading to the partial occupation of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. The second part, marked as “22,” covers the year 2022 when a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began. The final part, marked as “8 – ∞,” signifies the endless eight years of life between these two dates. Overall, the project aims to tell stories related to these crucial events in Ukraine’s history. 

Online and offline presentations 

The project has hosted one offline presentation and one archive exhibition in Lviv. Due to the project’s text-heavy focus, it can be challenging to showcase them in a physical exhibition space as not all texts have visual components. However, the project aims to expand its reach and present the archive through different mediums in physical spaces. These mediums include theatrical readings of stories, graphic novels, exhibitions in Ukraine and abroad, and posters featuring stories in urban spaces. The team is still in the process of evaluating which options are feasible and intends to hold more exhibitions within Ukraine this year. 

Apart from offline exhibitions, the project also aims to conduct online presentations in European countries and, if possible, hold offline events as well. The priority of the project is to reach a wider audience and amplify the voices of Ukrainians.

The story of Polina Pushkina

The team shared with us the story of one of their contributors, Polina Pushkina from the city of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region, about her experience of war since 2014. The full story can be read on 14-8-22’s archive:

“I first saw war in the summer of 2014 in Avdiivka. I was 12. I remember that I didn’t panic, but my parents did. We moved to Russia because we had relatives there. They helped us and shared an apartment with us first, but they kicked us out in a month because they’ve had enough of it. My family and I moved to a dormitory for factory workers. It was dirty and sad there, my parents drank, I went to school where Russian kids insulted me. We lived so poorly that I was happy to get some meat to eat.”

“We spoke with relatives from Avdiivka over the phone. Once I found 10 rubles, topped up my phone and called my grandmother. In the fall of 2015, we decided to return, but got into a car accident and returned to Russia. In the winter of 2015, my goddaughter died. That day was the first and last time I saw my father cry. In the winter of 2015, my parents and I returned to Avdiivka, because life in Russia is too depressing! The shelling continued, rats lived in our house. Three or even four times we changed the glass in the windows. I went to school. Like everyone, I secretly dreamed of getting sick in order to skip school, and I dreamed that there would be shelling, because I wasn’t in the mood for homework.”

A culture of solidarity

“In dark times like this,” says the 14-8-22 team, “the support you receive gives you the strength to move on and continue your work. Culture during the war has a completely different meaning, through culture we can prove our right to exist and cultural solidarity for me means that we have finally received recognition, for which we worked so hard, but unfortunately, the price for it is very high for us. It is very nice to see the world support for Ukraine in this difficult time, it gives us the strength to fight and we feel that we are not alone in front of our tragedy. This is a very important feeling, and we will continue our work so as not to disappoint you.”

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