#Ukrainian #children #narrate #invasion #art
The portrait of a woman, painted in blue and yellow – the colors of the Ukrainian flag – and striped with blood-red paint, is among 300 pictures of Ukrainian children on display at a Kyiv air-raid shelter on Friday.
“It’s worth reminding adults – the whole world – that children see, experience, feel all this. And unlike us, they cannot make decisions,” said Olena Sotnyk, a Ukrainian politician and prime minister’s adviser. as well as one of the organizers of the exhibition.
“They expect adults and the world to act to end the war.”
The exhibition entitled “Children. War. Future” opened to journalists on Friday at a central Kyiv metro station that had been closed since the Russian invasion began on February 24.
The Maidan Independence Station instead functioned as a bomb shelter beneath the site of massive pro-democracy protests in 2014 that toppled Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin leader.
The paintings by Ukrainian children from across the country depict horrors from places like Mariupol — a city brutally besieged and bombed by Russian forces — and Bucha, one of the first cities to see mass killings of civilians.
Others are optimistic: a smiling soldier buckles on a helmet, a woman wears a blue and yellow floral wreath with a dove surrounded by brightly colored flowers.
But the captions are clear: “No to war”, “I don’t want to die”.
“What these children feel is fear of war, fear. But on the other hand there is faith, hope, support and understanding that there will be bright days in the future,” said Danylo Tsvyok, who also helped direct the film Collection.
Sotnyk said there are plans to create a digital exhibition with several thousand images of children reflecting on the conflict.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General says at least 347 children have been killed and another 646 injured since the start of the Russian invasion.
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