"Portrait Archive: The war diary" is an art project and my personal challenge of documenting events through psychological portraits of Ukrainians. The main message is to highlight the impact of war on ordinary people. The questions of the consequences of the war that I raise in my works are taken from everyday life, and people and their struggle for freedom are my main subject. The war diary is based on the real events of 2022, which are taking place in Ukraine.

The project was implemented with the financial support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation. Ukrainian Cultural Foundation is a state institution created in 2017 as a new competition-based model of state funding and promotion of initiatives in the field of culture and creative industries. Foundation’s activities, according to current legislation, are integral part of the policy and priorities determined by the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. site:ucf.in.ua facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ucf.ua/

 We know what we are fighting for.

 Everything that is in the air and in the ground is filled with the spirit of the generations who, through suffering, won the right to live on this land. We, Their descendants, will never betray our roots, because for us the earth is not soil, but flesh, from which we are all created.

 Seeing the war through the eyes of a child seems much scarier than it really is. Everything seems bigger in a child's world, and the world is huge, and the war is all-encompassing. After all, how to explain that the war is only here, in Ukraine, at home, and there is no war outside Ukraine, the world lives as it did before, and the children have a home, and they sleep in their own beds, and mom and dad are nearby. It is like telling a child that there is no good, and there is no justice, and neither is magic, and that it was you who made a mistake somewhere, was bad, not obedient... because how does it turn out that the war is only in your home...

 We learned to suppress basic emotions, updated the scale of values, changed the pyramid of needs. But the fear has not disappeared, it is always there, as if waiting for the right moment to come out.

 Some are running, others are standing, and third are turning. After the 24th, time for Ukrainians took on a separate dimension. It's like we're from a distant planet where an hour is a year. Hands do not age immediately, the face ages first.

 We have learned to quietly rejoice at good news, to cry inconspicuously at sad ones, and to calmly accept a threat to life. However, how I want to laugh and dance all together, as before. But it's okay, we'll wait, because Ukrainians have learned to wait, too.

 It is impossible to survive the war, it spreads like rust, absorbing everyone to the last.
 Remembering is easy. Surviving is difficult. Forgetting is impossible.

 Losing a child is every mother's greatest fear and pain. Today, Ukrainian mothers lose their children every day, and this is not the pain of one person, it is a loss that each of us feels as our own. And so every day, for more than six months, as the war continues. It is already known about at least 7,000 children from Ukraine who were forcibly taken to the Russian Federation.

 Each artwork is a part of my war diary "Portrait Archive". It is also a diary of collective memory, although it does not become less personal for that. The segments of days that we string together like a necklace, day after day, create this chain of history that we prefer not to know, but must experience.

 No home, no more to worry about. There are no relatives, there is no one else to worry about. A person does not disappear immediately, his soul first dies. Man is like a drop, but he is also the sea. One's life is like one life, but its loss is a pain for the whole nation. Today we are all terribly hurt, and there is no excuse for it.

 Photos with our grandmothers eloquently testify to the burden of fate. In peacetime, they are smiling, simple, hearty old women who have long since learned to be happy about simple things and what they have. And they don't have much, their own corner, which they nurture, and their native land under their feet. Today, the war took all this from them. Confused, embarrassed, sad faces, humbly accepting their fate, but never losing faith.

 It is believed that today there are no separate artists, writers, poets, actors, etc., because we are all fighters of the same cultural front. Every time, receiving feedback from the foreign audience about my work, I am convinced of this anew. No matter how hard it is and no matter what, every day we get one step closer to victory and our Ukrainian future.

 A person and his life in the conditions of forced resettlement is the tragic fate of the elderly, who were deprived of the opportunity to live out their old age in their native walls. Lonely old women are most in need of a helping hand.

 The strongest kiss in the world is the one with which parents greet their children after a long separation due to war. May all children wait for their parents from the war, alive and unharmed.

 Is it possible not to breathe all 159 days of the war? Probably not, but the state of numbness in which everyone finds themselves constantly tries to disprove it.

 A look that combined fear, fatigue, hopelessness and humility. Acceptance of the fact that the struggle for Ukrainian freedom is not a sprint, but a marathon. In order to overcome it, it is necessary to learn to block all normal reactions to pain.

 The air alarm signal warns of the threat of missile attack, to which everyone has learned to react in his own way. However, there is something that unites them, this is a common desire to protect loved ones and, grasping the palms of their hands, seek shelter. And like that every day.

 Now the most important thing is to endure, hold on and keep the faith, because currently the population has become the main target of the invaders.

 People die every day, and not only on the battlefield, ordinary people trying to adapt to a terrible reality. Doctors who came to work, teachers who conduct classes remotely from home, mothers with children who went for a walk. Families die on the streets, in public buildings and in their apartments. They are killed at night in their beds, in the morning at breakfast and in the afternoon when they are at work, went to the store, or are walking down the street. Neither time nor place is important for rockets, they explode everywhere, because there is no safe place in Ukraine today.
 Imagine for a moment that you are riding in a bus full of people, and at some point all those people disappear. All of them died yesterday in Vinnytsia, when a Russian rocket hit a public building. Or imagine that you are in a subway car full of people, and at some point all the people disappear. These are those who died three days ago in the city of Chasiv Yar, when a Russian rocket hit a residential building.
 On a global scale, this number means nothing, but it is a loss for the country, a tragedy for the city and grief for the family whose loved ones or friends have died. Human life never just disappears, it is always someone's pain.

 Fear has millions of manifestations, and everyone has their own.

 Do you know what it's like to fight for bread? Bread is the basis of nutrition, a basic product that is present on every table, it is sold everywhere and it is easy to buy, even with a minimal budget. During the isolation, we felt the lack of bread and how difficult it is to get it. In the cities that are now occupied, announcements are increasingly appearing in stores: "There will be no more bread." Every time the occupiers seize new territory and every time our fields burn, this phrase rings in the mind, warning of the threat of famine.

 Pets feel well the emotional state of their owners, their behavior reflects everything that a person feels.

 The 131st day of the war is 130 and one part of the soul, fragmented like a broken plate, the parts of which scattered across the floor. Some of these soul fragments are gone forever. We will never rejoice as before, laugh so openly, trust so simply, make friends so easily, and love so calmly...

 Everyone has "his" person-totem, a relationship with whom he nurtures, protects and values. This person is a talisman of fate and all life, the only talisman that is always with you.

 “Scared baby bird” and the fourth month of the “special operation” to exterminate the Ukrainian people. More than 1,000 children have already been affected, almost 400 of whom have died. This is a generation of emotionally traumatized people whose childhood was spent in survival. Today, almost every mother had to flee Ukraine to save her child, because we still remember, thanks to our parents, what "children of war" means.

 I promise to protect while you protect me. These are the words of children who instantly became adults, the words of teenagers who became responsible for their younger brothers and sisters. These are the words of those who have lost their childhood, but are trying to preserve it for others.

 Every day begins and ends with a feeling of fear. A disgusting and insidious feeling of anxiety that runs through the body over and over again. The war will end in a week, a month, a year, two, five, or never. Fear is an ugly, worthless feeling, it is everywhere, the skin is soaked with it, and the hair smells like it. It is in everyone's eyes, forever while the war is going on.

 More than five million Ukrainians lost their homes. Deprived of their own, they try to protect the most valuable - their children. On their faces is reflected the war itself, which looks so uncomfortable where people do not know what it is like to be a forced migrant.

 Everyone is given exactly as much as he can bear. Everyone has their own cross.

 The most vulnerable are those who least ask for it....

 Every mother is the core of the family, an indestructible wall that protects her children. However, forced migration caused this wall to move, looking for a new place where it could stand firm. Unfortunately, such a place will not be found anywhere in the world, as her husband, relatives and close people who anchor her at home remain in Ukraine. All the things that give her strength are in Ukraine, without them she is vulnerable, and therefore she is looking everywhere for a way back home.

 109 days of horror, tens of thousands of crippled destinies, thousands of orphans who will never see their parents again. And millions of Ukrainians who cannot hug their children for more than 100 days.

 Every Ukrainian now knows from his own experience what paralyzing fear is. A feeling that envelops the whole body, rising to the throat, but cannot get out because of an invisible hand that squeezes the throat. This fear is all-encompassing, it constantly flows through the body, from the anxiety that keeps you constantly on edge, to the animalistic, connected with the instinct of survival. But fear is always there.

 Old people have soft skin, like a feather. For some reason, when thinking about home as a safe haven from childhood, this feeling always comes to mind. Softness, peace, protection and time that has stopped.

 Despite the distance, a loved one is always nearby. Whose embraces warm even thousands of kilometers away, and whose hands protect. A point followed by a streak of days and months of confrontation, six months of struggle for freedom. Every day hundreds die, and every day hundreds rise up for Ukraine.

 Without a home, without hope of return, with roots torn away. A Ukrainian grandmother is like a withered branch, left alone far from her home.

 It's calm when mom is near, when her arms wrap around like wings, protecting from the cruelty of the outside world. Safely with my mother anywhere, whether in the basement, hiding from the bombings, or in a foreign land, looking for shelter. Mom is home, even when home is gone.

 A person screams not when he needs help, but when he is burning from the inside. This is not a cry of despair or hopelessness, this is the last manifestation of emotion, bursting out before disappearing forever.

 War forces children to become adults instantly. Mother's protection is what makes them brave.

 I don't know how to explain the feelings of a person who lost everything in the war. Who was left without the home in which she lived all her life, the land where she grew up, loved ones, opportunities and, ultimately, hope. War destroys.