As if acting as a counter to the destruction felt amidst the Ukraine-Russia war, people have taken an interest in safeguarding and sharing the country's culture and art. Be it through the conservation of sacred and priceless artworks or the exhibition of paintings saved from the battlefields, Ukrainian art is currently being celebrated throughout the world.
British photographer Daoud Sarhandi chips into this renewed appreciation of the country's brand of artistry with his new book "Ukraine at War: Street Art, Posters + Poetry" where he chronicled and curated a series of street art within the war-torn city of Kyiv.
Walking the Streets of Kyiv, Chronicling the Ukrainian Art
After finishing photobooks featuring art from similarly war-ravaged countries of Bosnia, Palestine, and Kosovo, Sarhandi flew to the city of Kyiv six months after the war against Russia broke out, as reported in The Guardian.
According to Sarhandi, he "literally walked the city" snapping over half a day's worth of pictures in a span of a month, saying, "I've probably walked Kyiv more than most residents have." The enormous bank of photographs he collected was then carefully organized until he had the finalized version of the book
Sarhandi said that he structured the collection as he would if he were making a film to reinforce the narrative immersion of walking down the stress of Kyiv and "discovering these things as they go along, turning a page as if you'd turn a corner." Throughout his time photographing the art in Kyiv, he was reportedly once by the police who exhibited a protective attitude toward the artworks.
This nature was digested by Sarhandi as a manifestation of the "wider importance of culture" in Ukraine which is coincidentally expressed through the "richness and diversity of the street art." He added that these artworks are not a product of passivity as "victims of war," but are rather a courageous and imaginative response filled with "hope."
Within the foreword of his book, Sarhandi is very clear in what he hopes to achieve for the reader and that is to let them experience present-day Ukraine as vividly and as grippingly as possible, more genuinely as "any future history might." Through this, he hopes to show the healing capability that "art in a time of war" can do.
One highlight of the overall curation of photos in the book is the 2014 collaboration piece between Julien "Seth Globepainter" Malland, a French artist; and Aleksey Kislov, a Ukrainian artist. The gargantuan mural depicts a Ukrainian woman, whose hair is braided using ribbons adorning the colors of the country's flags.
The figure is holding a tiny child who is sitting on her palm as she towers over a cityscape and a gentleman whose head is split open to reveal another house in place of where his brain would be. Kislov also noted the mural's reference to the traditional dress that Ukrainians wore on the day of Crimea's 2014 annexation.
