WARscapes

I focus on the relationship between landscape and national identity in war-torn Ukraine. This identity is constantly changing in the process of shaping a national myth from elements from both the past and the wartime present.

On February 24, 2022, the troops of the Russian Federation attacked Ukraine. From that day, the most important military conflict since the WW2 takes place just outside the boarders of my country. The conflict which, from its very beginning, has been shaping the geopolitics of not only region, but also the whole world. This war also shapes the space of Ukraine itself.

I found myself in Ukraine for the first time at the beginning of March 2022. I came to Lviv from Medyka (Poland), where I worked on the Polish-Ukrainian border as a volunteer during the first 3 weeks of the war. At the very beginning, I dealt with typical topics arising from the need to provide "news" stories. But rather quickly, I decided to take a few steps back from typical events and look at the war in a broader context.

I focus on the relations between the Ukrainian landscape and the national identity of contemporary Ukraine, engulfed in war. This identity is constantly changing and reconstructed in the process of shaping a national myth from various elements, both from the past and the wartime present. By observing traces in the landscape, I try to observe the changing social and national structure. The myth of the state, of which in the case of Ukraine the landscape is an important symbol, is undergoing a dynamic transformation. Perhaps the end of the war will allow us to clarify this currently difficult-to-grasp image.