“Ukraine: War and Resistance”

By Mia Timlin

The lobby of the Mill City Museum is currently hosting a series of 41 photos, entitled “Ukraine: War and Resistance,” capturing moments from the Russian conflict in Ukraine. The special exhibit is free to view and will be up through May 14.

“There are no blood and guts in these photos; they show the horror of war in the eyes of children, the men and women living in ruins, the resolve of the Ukrainian people,” says a quote from Fulbright Association of Minnesota Chapter president Michael Dorsher, Ph.D. The photos in question were put together by Fulbright alumni JT Blatty, Alexey Furman, Brendan Hoffman, Serhii Korovanyny, Oksana Parafeniuk, Joseph Sywenkyj and Emine Ziyatdinova, and feature the terror that comes when everyday actions are marred by war.

The images first hung in the Vinnytsia museum in Ukraine, and by partnering with The Fulbright Academic Exchange Program in Ukraine/Representative Office of the Institute of International Education in Ukraine, the Minnesota Chapter of the Fulbright Association has helped bring them to the Twin Cities.

The exhibition statement explains that sharing these images outside of the Ukrainian museum where they made their initial appearance is an effort to call widespread attention to the stories playing out in Ukraine and the global impacts that have the potential to come out of them. It states that the images’ “themes and plots are extremely important for all civilized countries, as well as for the preservation of democracy in the world.”

One of the most striking things you take from the exhibit as a viewer is how clearly emotion is depicted in the images. You get the distinct feeling that the subject of the photo knows that you’re looking at them. A woman looks dead on her feet as she takes a break from working on relief effort. The circles around her eyes are so incredibly dark. A business psychology and a management student huddle together during training to become soldiers. They’re there because they must “prepare for the worst, believe in the best.” A woman identified only as “Hope” sweeps the shattered pieces of a Russian armored personnel carrier off her street. A mother drapes herself over the casket of a soldier. 

The images are up to remind viewers how much people have had to give, how much they’re capable of giving and what it’s cost. A vacancy where innocence used to be as a government places weapons into the hands of its people because it’s the best way to keep them safe. A boy with a brain tumor being placed into a helicopter, because what his family was dealing with wasn’t hard enough already without the added obstacle of evacuation. A mother watches her hardly 3-foot-tall daughter pack her clothes into a suitcase to go live with another family while she volunteers on the frontlines.

It’s these moments that make the photos of hope and joy that much more significant. An image of a girl grinning on a swing in front of the backdrop of a decimated building, someone making a child laugh in a makeshift home. There’s a distinct balance found within these photos — the ugliness of cruelty in war and the strength in the helping of one another to get through it. You can find lots of darkness, but also patches of light if you’re looking for them. 

“Ukraine: War and Resistance” is a beautiful body of work that is incredibly hard to look at. It goes beyond showing what is going on in the country — it shows what’s happening on a more cellular level. And what could be more important about what’s happening in a country than what’s happening to its people?