Short Summary

Ukrainian artist Oleksandra writes from exile, reflecting on belonging, responsibility, and the powerlessness of art in times of war. While bombs fall on her homeland and the world carries on as usual, she asks: What remains of art when reality screams louder than any canvas? A haunting account of life in foreign lands, the burden of choices, and the quiet rebellion of remembrance.

Morning, 13.04.2025. 

I’m in Sweden, it’s such a beautiful day. Birds are singing, flowers are blooming. Russians hit the city of Sumy with a ballistic missile, targeting civilians.
13:38, as of Kyiv time, it is known that 24 people have perished and 84 are wounded. My social media is filled with videos of lifeless bodies, flung onto the street by the blast wave, of a mother soaked in blood calming her equally bloody daughter, of a woman
lamenting over her dearly departed loved one. I’ve been outside of Ukraine for such a long time, spending countless hours on the road and in hotels, that I’m beginning to consider expatriation as a viable option in my life.
Been foreigner it’s forever — it has the special charm of being an alien in the mixed European society. It teaches us to be more self-reliant, lonely, and removed from it all —
being free like snot in the wind.
As soon as we cross the border of our country, we become orphans. We are out of gang in any place in the world — not because we are strangers, but because we are from Ukraine, a Ukraine that is bleeding. We live this war every day, lose our people, live in tragedy.
We are Ukrainians — sad ghosts, permanently drenched in silent suffering, comfortable and friendly through effort. Guests must be polite and appreciative.
The war, started by russia against us, has created a huge divide between us and the rest of the world - a drowsy world, detached from primordial, existential values - the ones professed in the art but forgotten in everyday life. In our world, righteous kill has become
routine. On the other side of Ukraine, such things are not allowed to be spoken aloud.

13.04.2025. 17:31, as of Kyiv time, it is known that 34 people have perished and 117 are wounded in the city of Sumy.

It is good to be an artist, it's an easy way to find people around in any new city, cultural sector makes us beans in the same pod. Beyond the artistic discourse we are, roughly speaking, disconnected from each other. But I can’t even imagine how lineless other people are. Who have no grounds or opportunity to communicate and choose who suits them better. At the same time, the artist stays an outcast in any milieu apart from one’s own - in my case, it’s the Kyiv art crowd. In a new society we are odd in some way, even in immigrant society we are a deviation. We are accepted, but I catch myself thinking that we are like circus monkeys, who are interesting to observe. 

“They will treat you with condescension, understanding and sympathy. They will invite you to their homes. Just as they keep lap-dogs and other pets, they are quite prepared to keep a few foreigners,” Expressed George Mikes in 1946. It still feels that way.

I have no value judgments - it’s good or bad - it just is as it is. After all, at home we are out of gang because we left home. Our Ukrainian society is divided, in general, into people doing military service on the frontline, people on the other side of the frontline but still in Ukraine and people who left their home, like me. Day by day, I replay in my mind the responsibility of each of my decisions. About conclusion -didn’t join the military and stuck abroad for a while, probably it’s the straw that broke the camel's back. How many potential comrades have fallen because of one less physical unit in the military structure, who could have replaced me, did I legalize non-involvement and self-exclusion by my example?

23.04.2025. 

A close family friend had a stroke, just few months passed since he was demobilized, and we, together with my mother, let go of our anxiety. He now has a stroke, diabetes, a bypass surgery after a heart attack, and is on crutches.

This art, as I pictured it previously, almost totally no longer makes sense to me. It must be multifunctional and reasonable, it has its own duties, must be a mechanism of revolution, enlightenment, a catalyst of historical change, must be Soft Power and social lubricant.
Once upon time, I imagine that I will create something new, become exceptional and non-trivial, would be well-known and establish myself. I think now that it’s not a big deal if not. Or, if it turns out that what I was afraid of, that I’m mediocre artist, just wasting time, it’s no longer of special meaning. That’s alright, that the time of my ideas, possibly really deserving ideas, passes.
I had everything, and everything was possible in Ukraine, I assumed it would always be there. Outside its borders, artistic opportunity is restricted by my current mode - no studio, no experiments, no new art practices, without friends who were always around,without a network proven over the years and well-studied during both happy and challenging times. It was anarchic fun, often.

I’m a remote witness for my friends in Ukraine. Some are creating new brands, gaining new skills and expertise, or working on things that they had postponed. Others, on the contrary, are unable to work with art, another part is serving in the army. In the meantime, urban culture continues to develop - new initiatives and art spaces are emerging, bookstores are opening, new albums are being recorded, and tickets in theaters sell out very early. Exhibitions are being held, and artworks are being sold, even though the buyer has now become impoverished. Perhaps, people have made stronger turn toward the cultural side and have begun to comprehend its significance. 

But what occurs to me is that everyone is hurrying - because tomorrow may never come for them. I have been sorted into that part of artists who have no inspiration or stance to force themselves to work like before. Thus, my modes of self-expression give in to the circumstances, and I’m choosing quick and simple methods of information dissemination - realistic painting, lectures and all kinds of public activity. 

Beyond apathy toward my own art, I have an annual plan, new projects and a few solo exhibitions in different countries. It all gets done gradually because it has to, but emotional satisfaction I no longer feel.

Since painting doesn’t so inspired like before, so I dedicate my time for prepare to working in an academical environment and working with researches Ukrainian culture. Its investment in future, a better future for Ukraine, It seems to me or at least I want to think so. I spend time analyzing and understanding the impact of upbringing, social, and academic surroundings, media, family, heritage, collective memory, traditions and how all of this shapes public opinion. The root causes of why we are where we are and why we are who we are. I see my artistic future in study focused on culture and those involved in cultural work. Ukrainians are exceptionally free-spirited and strong-willed and what is going on with today’s generation must be written down now - memory disappear in stress. 

Write while they are alive, to accomplish everything today it’s truly given a sense of importance of my actions. There is desire not just to blend into modern art world, but desire to curve Ukrainian identity in this flow.

In summary of my self-analysis, I realize that politics become part of my life from that moment when I followed my mother on my first revolution in 2014. Political beliefs and social responsibility have cemented our artistic collective, in which I grew and
established as a person, with the same strong ties as art itself. Our perception of the world was formed by revolutions we won, and the war we refuse to lose.

24.04.2025. 

At night Ukraine was under attack. A missile hit Kyiv — my district — most likely a North Korean one. By the evening, it is known that 12 people have perished and 90 are wounded, the rubble still be dig through.