Project MARIA by Canadian artist of Ukrainian descent Lesia Maruschak became the most famous exhibition about the Holodomor of 1932-1933, according to the National Museum of the Holodomor Genocide in Kyiv. This artwork has traveled to nine countries, and the book based on the project has won international awards. The exhibition provides an opportunity to look at the memory of the Holodomor through art, which makes a complex topic accessible and understandable on many levels. On Holodomor Remembrance Day, we talked to Lesia Marushchak about her idea, hidden symbols, and how she managed to tell about terrible things in a beautiful way.
— Do you remember when you first came up with the idea of creating the Maria project? How did you find the form in which it was realized? How long did this idea take you to mature?
— First of all, it should be noted that I turned to art only in 2016. Back then I was diagnosed with blood cancer, and everything happened very quickly, because I didn't know how much time I had left. This made me act decisively and urgently. One of my first projects was “ERASURE: Memory and the Power of Politics”. It was inspired by a box of old photographs that belonged to my husband's mother, a native Kyivan who survived Stalin's terror.
In that box were photos with faces removed or cut out. It reminded me of how my grandmother also cut people out of photographs out of fear or painful memories. This is how the concept of “erasing” people emerged, a very old and terrible process that destroys not only the physical presence but also the memory of a person.
Цей концепт я пов’язала з політикою Сталіна, яку я назвала «soft genocide» (м’який геноцид). Це починалося зі знищення церков, шкіл, священників, інтелігенції — всього, що формує ідентичність народу. Після цього я задумалася над наступним кроком цієї політики — Голодомором, уже справжнім геноцидом.
На той час я читала книгу Енн Епплбаум «Червоний голод», де дуже детально описано історичні, політичні та фізіологічні аспекти Голодомору, а також американські свідчення тих подій. Це дало мені розуміння, що Голодомор був другим етапом геноциду, і я виокремила три фази цього процесу.
— How did the image of “Maria” come about?
— I wondered what it means to be a young girl. What are her dreams? What would her photo album look like if she lived a normal life, not the one she was destined for? This is how the image of Maria was born.
I created an imaginary album of her dreams. In my archive, I had costumes that my aunt Hania from Toporivtsi had given me. I photographed these elements and built her world through photographs. To do this, I used a very old photo album and called the series “Red”.
My grandmother always associated the color red with something terrible. In this series, it symbolizes the dreams of a young girl, her being, which will be stolen from her. She does not yet realize that her life will change forever, but a deep drama already permeates this image.
The second series of the project was a work called “Counting”. At the time I was working on it, the news reported on a ship that sank. The exact number of victims was announced, and this accuracy touched me. With the Holodomor, it's different: they talk about 4 million, someone says 7, and if we take into account the generations that were not born because of this tragedy, it's over 11 million. But there is no final figure.
This uncertainty made me think: does the number matter when it comes to an act of genocide? One person or millions is still a crime against humanity. I lived with this question while working on the series: how do we count in life, and is the human mind capable of comprehending the scale of mass destruction?
I started researching how people counted in different eras. I was particularly interested in an ancient artifact from Greece - The Salamis Tablet, the oldest counting device. It was a marble slab with lines along which stones were moved to create counts. This idea of counting as a process became the basis of my work. For this series, I used archival photographs by the Austrian engineer Alexander Wienerberger, who was in Ukraine during the Holodomor, particularly in Kharkiv. He photographed what he saw and left a diary with horrific testimonies. In these photographs, I created lines and dots symbolizing the count, and asked a philosophical question: is the number of victims really important when it comes to such a large-scale crime?
I wanted to create two dialogues. The first is between Wienerberger's photographs and my abstract art language. I used counting and graphic elements to interpret historical materials. The second dialog is between these new works and contemporary viewers. My goal is to make people think about the question that haunts me: can we comprehend genocide and its scale?
This series is not just about numbers. It is about how people face tragedies and try to comprehend what, at first glance, defies understanding.
The third series of the project is called Transfiguration. It was a testimony of people who survived the Holodomor. I worked with eyewitness interviews available on Canadian and American resources, as well as with the stories of my “Maria”. I was particularly impressed by the psychological and physiological aspects of the famine, which were written about in detail by Anne Applebaum. One of the memories stuck in my mind: children said that their mothers became “like a glass of water”-transparent, weak, fragile.
I tried to convey this horrible process of dying from cold and hunger in my photographs. At the same time, these works turned out to be terribly beautiful - it was a way to find the human in the inhuman.
In 2018, during a trip to Lviv, I bought a bag of prayer books at a fair. I took one of them home, scanned all 600 pages, and created a work called Prayer.
I thought: what do people do when they die? They pray. Imagine more than 4 million people dying at the same time and praying. This thought did not let me go. My goal was to give a voice to those who could not speak out during life, whose pain the world was ignoring at the time. I wanted these works to “speak” even after death.
Currently, I am collaborating with composer Oleh Shlepko from Germany and his colleagues from Ukraine to create music based on my works to give voice to the suffering of millions.
The final part of the project was the story of a particular woman. Once I wrote to my friends on Facebook asking them to share photos that could be related to the Holodomor. One woman replied that she had a photo of her mother-in-law, whose name was Maria. The family gave permission to use the photo, asking that only her first name, Maria F., be used.
“I realized that I needed a symbol that would embody the suffering of the Ukrainian people. I cut Maria out of a family photo and added wings drawn by a Byzantine iconographer. That's how I created the collage: Mary turned into an angel, a symbol of our nation and its pain.
Instead, in my process I used Japanese paper, natural materials and techniques related to icon painting: I mixed egg and wine, added pigments, and created almost sculptural elements. These works seem to be alive: the paper shrinks and straightens, resembling human skin.
One of the works within this project was a huge photograph measuring one by four meters. It was inspired by the moment when my family was preparing to bury my father in the winter. The ground was hard as a rock, but we were digging the grave, throwing clods of frozen earth. I photographed this scene and used it as a basis for my work.
The creation process was part of my dialog with nature. After printing, I took the photo to the prairie. During the work, the wind picked up, it started to rain, and I interacted with the materials, barefoot in my embroidered shirt. The paper got wet, wore out, tore, and this became part of the art itself.
My creative process always includes interaction with the environment. It is important for me that nature is involved in the creation of the works, and people can touch them, feel the texture. These are not static exhibits under glass that cannot be touched. I want the works to become a part of the human experience, to evoke emotions and promote reflection.
It is important for me that it is not just a set of exhibits, but a sacred space, like a church. People who come to the exhibition should become participants in the process. They should not just look, but think and reflect: who are we? What is our role?
In a conversation with Harvard curator Maketa Best during FotoFest in Houston (a contemporary art organization dedicated to the development of photography and visual culture - ed.), we discussed the concept of a mobile memorial. She asked: “Lesia, how does a mobile memorial work? What do you want to convey to people?” This made me think: what kind of work should I create so that people can interact with such difficult topics as the Holodomor?
Often viewers know nothing about this tragedy, but through the works they are able to touch the history, literally and metaphorically. It's not only about memory, but also about dialog - with history, with oneself, with society.
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For this work, I used wax and ashes that I received from a local church. I asked the priest to share the leftover candles and ashes from the ceremonies. Using these materials, I painted with wax and ash on paper to create the feeling that the prayers penetrate the very structure of the work. I painted so that these prayers could somehow enter the interior. The photographs become sculptural objects so that people can touch these topics that we are so afraid of more deeply. We don't know how to talk about it, we can't even intellectually comprehend it all, and photographs and art give everyone a chance to tackle difficult topics.
— How did the audience react to the Maria project? Do you remember any feedback or reactions?
— The Maria project has become known far beyond Ukraine, traveling to different countries. In Ukraine, the exhibition started around 2020, visiting 6-7 cities with the support of the Ukrainian World Congress. The last place was Kharkiv, where it was at the beginning of the full-scale war. It was later moved and exhibited in western Ukraine. Unfortunately, I was not present during any of the Ukrainian presentations. This is difficult for me, because the project only makes sense when people interact with it. However, I know that the exhibition evoked a deep response.
One of the key elements of the exhibition was interactive work: we disassembled the book Maria, creating a wall of pages strung on nails. People could take a page, write on it their memories of the Holodomor, if they had any in their families, and attach it back to the wall. This created a living dialog between the past and the present.
One of the most important reactions I remember was from a curator who said: “It's extremely beautiful, and it's about genocide.” I have never worked with the intention of creating something beautiful, but it is this aesthetic that helps people engage with difficult topics. She explained: “If it were just images of hunger and death, people, especially children, might be afraid and avoid it. But your work creates a way to perception through beauty. People start interacting with it and then delve into the story if they want to know more.”
This concept became the basis for the Mobile Memorial, which allows people to participate in the memory of the Holodomor at different levels, gradually delving into the topic.
The exhibition project included two videos: Animatas #1 and Animatas #2. The title is based on the Latin word “animati” - “souls”. In the video, old photographs printed on fabric are hung between trees like laundry. The wind blows the fabric, and the images seem alive - people's figures move, flicker, reminding us of souls who have long since left this world.
The difference between the two videos is time: one was shot during the day and the other at night. The sound is a monotonous hum that creates the effect of a spiritual connection with the past.
One of my most important works was the art book Transfiguration, which was included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Library of Congress, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and other prestigious institutions. This was an important moment for me, because many of these institutions do not have similar materials on the Holodomor.
A few weeks ago, I spoke with the head of the Library of Congress, who said: “Your books are important because they open up complex topics through art, helping people who know nothing about it to join the conversation.”
The exhibition materials are currently on display in Vinnytsia. You can see it in an electronic version on the website of the Holodomor Genocide Museum.
“My goal has always been to create works that touch on an emotional level. At a time when the world is tired of war and tragedy, such materials can stir people's hearts, awaken empathy, and encourage understanding. I want people not just to look at these works, but to feel them. Through wax, ashes, paper, and prayers, I tried to convey a tragedy that is difficult to comprehend intellectually. This art invites not only to think, but also to experience, touch, and feel. It is a way to open the way to a conversation about pain and loss, which we often remain silent about.
Lesia Maruschak is a Canadian photographer and artist of Ukrainian descent, known for her projects that explore the themes of historical memory, national identity, and the tragedies of the Ukrainian people. Through photography, archival materials, and installations, Lesia Maruschak explores the histories of colonized peoples and their transformations under the influence of geopolitical factors, as well as the individual and collective cultural consequences of exile. Her narrative exhibitions with static and dynamic images and rough and delicate sculptural elements have been presented in over 65 museums, galleries, and art spaces around the world. Her most famous project in Ukraine is dedicated to the Holodomor of 1932-1933 and is called Project MARIA, which was shown in nine countries. The book based on the project was shortlisted for the book prize at the influential international photo festival Rencontres d'Arles in France (2019) and received the award for best design at the international festival Book Arsenal in Kyiv (2019). The book MARIA was developed in collaboration with Elias Zhekalov, REDZET Kyiv. In September 2020, The Guardian published photos from the MARIA project in an article about the best photos from the Landskrona festival.
We worked on the material:
Researcher of the topic, author of the text: Vira Labych
Editor-in-chief: Viacheslav Ratynskyi
Literary editor: Yulia Futey
Website manager: Vladyslav Kukhar
Project MARIA by Canadian artist of Ukrainian descent Lesia Maruschak became the most famous exhibition about the Holodomor of 1932-1933, according to the National Museum of the Holodomor Genocide in Kyiv. This artwork has traveled to nine countries, and the book based on the project has won international awards. The exhibition provides an opportunity to look at the memory of the Holodomor through art, which makes a complex topic accessible and understandable on many levels. On Holodomor Remembrance Day, we talked to Lesia Marushchak about her idea, hidden symbols, and how she managed to tell about terrible things in a beautiful way.
— Do you remember when you first came up with the idea of creating the Maria project? How did you find the form in which it was realized? How long did this idea take you to mature?
— First of all, it should be noted that I turned to art only in 2016. Back then I was diagnosed with blood cancer, and everything happened very quickly, because I didn't know how much time I had left. This made me act decisively and urgently. One of my first projects was “ERASURE: Memory and the Power of Politics”. It was inspired by a box of old photographs that belonged to my husband's mother, a native Kyivan who survived Stalin's terror.
In that box were photos with faces removed or cut out. It reminded me of how my grandmother also cut people out of photographs out of fear or painful memories. This is how the concept of “erasing” people emerged, a very old and terrible process that destroys not only the physical presence but also the memory of a person.
Цей концепт я пов’язала з політикою Сталіна, яку я назвала «soft genocide» (м’який геноцид). Це починалося зі знищення церков, шкіл, священників, інтелігенції — всього, що формує ідентичність народу. Після цього я задумалася над наступним кроком цієї політики — Голодомором, уже справжнім геноцидом.
На той час я читала книгу Енн Епплбаум «Червоний голод», де дуже детально описано історичні, політичні та фізіологічні аспекти Голодомору, а також американські свідчення тих подій. Це дало мені розуміння, що Голодомор був другим етапом геноциду, і я виокремила три фази цього процесу.
— How did the image of “Maria” come about?
— I wondered what it means to be a young girl. What are her dreams? What would her photo album look like if she lived a normal life, not the one she was destined for? This is how the image of Maria was born.
I created an imaginary album of her dreams. In my archive, I had costumes that my aunt Hania from Toporivtsi had given me. I photographed these elements and built her world through photographs. To do this, I used a very old photo album and called the series “Red”.
My grandmother always associated the color red with something terrible. In this series, it symbolizes the dreams of a young girl, her being, which will be stolen from her. She does not yet realize that her life will change forever, but a deep drama already permeates this image.
The second series of the project was a work called “Counting”. At the time I was working on it, the news reported on a ship that sank. The exact number of victims was announced, and this accuracy touched me. With the Holodomor, it's different: they talk about 4 million, someone says 7, and if we take into account the generations that were not born because of this tragedy, it's over 11 million. But there is no final figure.
This uncertainty made me think: does the number matter when it comes to an act of genocide? One person or millions is still a crime against humanity. I lived with this question while working on the series: how do we count in life, and is the human mind capable of comprehending the scale of mass destruction?
I started researching how people counted in different eras. I was particularly interested in an ancient artifact from Greece - The Salamis Tablet, the oldest counting device. It was a marble slab with lines along which stones were moved to create counts. This idea of counting as a process became the basis of my work. For this series, I used archival photographs by the Austrian engineer Alexander Wienerberger, who was in Ukraine during the Holodomor, particularly in Kharkiv. He photographed what he saw and left a diary with horrific testimonies. In these photographs, I created lines and dots symbolizing the count, and asked a philosophical question: is the number of victims really important when it comes to such a large-scale crime?
I wanted to create two dialogues. The first is between Wienerberger's photographs and my abstract art language. I used counting and graphic elements to interpret historical materials. The second dialog is between these new works and contemporary viewers. My goal is to make people think about the question that haunts me: can we comprehend genocide and its scale?
This series is not just about numbers. It is about how people face tragedies and try to comprehend what, at first glance, defies understanding.
The third series of the project is called Transfiguration. It was a testimony of people who survived the Holodomor. I worked with eyewitness interviews available on Canadian and American resources, as well as with the stories of my “Maria”. I was particularly impressed by the psychological and physiological aspects of the famine, which were written about in detail by Anne Applebaum. One of the memories stuck in my mind: children said that their mothers became “like a glass of water”-transparent, weak, fragile.
I tried to convey this horrible process of dying from cold and hunger in my photographs. At the same time, these works turned out to be terribly beautiful - it was a way to find the human in the inhuman.
In 2018, during a trip to Lviv, I bought a bag of prayer books at a fair. I took one of them home, scanned all 600 pages, and created a work called Prayer.
I thought: what do people do when they die? They pray. Imagine more than 4 million people dying at the same time and praying. This thought did not let me go. My goal was to give a voice to those who could not speak out during life, whose pain the world was ignoring at the time. I wanted these works to “speak” even after death.
Currently, I am collaborating with composer Oleh Shlepko from Germany and his colleagues from Ukraine to create music based on my works to give voice to the suffering of millions.
The final part of the project was the story of a particular woman. Once I wrote to my friends on Facebook asking them to share photos that could be related to the Holodomor. One woman replied that she had a photo of her mother-in-law, whose name was Maria. The family gave permission to use the photo, asking that only her first name, Maria F., be used.
“I realized that I needed a symbol that would embody the suffering of the Ukrainian people. I cut Maria out of a family photo and added wings drawn by a Byzantine iconographer. That's how I created the collage: Mary turned into an angel, a symbol of our nation and its pain.
Instead, in my process I used Japanese paper, natural materials and techniques related to icon painting: I mixed egg and wine, added pigments, and created almost sculptural elements. These works seem to be alive: the paper shrinks and straightens, resembling human skin.
One of the works within this project was a huge photograph measuring one by four meters. It was inspired by the moment when my family was preparing to bury my father in the winter. The ground was hard as a rock, but we were digging the grave, throwing clods of frozen earth. I photographed this scene and used it as a basis for my work.
The creation process was part of my dialog with nature. After printing, I took the photo to the prairie. During the work, the wind picked up, it started to rain, and I interacted with the materials, barefoot in my embroidered shirt. The paper got wet, wore out, tore, and this became part of the art itself.
My creative process always includes interaction with the environment. It is important for me that nature is involved in the creation of the works, and people can touch them, feel the texture. These are not static exhibits under glass that cannot be touched. I want the works to become a part of the human experience, to evoke emotions and promote reflection.
It is important for me that it is not just a set of exhibits, but a sacred space, like a church. People who come to the exhibition should become participants in the process. They should not just look, but think and reflect: who are we? What is our role?
In a conversation with Harvard curator Maketa Best during FotoFest in Houston (a contemporary art organization dedicated to the development of photography and visual culture - ed.), we discussed the concept of a mobile memorial. She asked: “Lesia, how does a mobile memorial work? What do you want to convey to people?” This made me think: what kind of work should I create so that people can interact with such difficult topics as the Holodomor?
Often viewers know nothing about this tragedy, but through the works they are able to touch the history, literally and metaphorically. It's not only about memory, but also about dialog - with history, with oneself, with society.
For this work, I used wax and ashes that I received from a local church. I asked the priest to share the leftover candles and ashes from the ceremonies. Using these materials, I painted with wax and ash on paper to create the feeling that the prayers penetrate the very structure of the work. I painted so that these prayers could somehow enter the interior. The photographs become sculptural objects so that people can touch these topics that we are so afraid of more deeply. We don't know how to talk about it, we can't even intellectually comprehend it all, and photographs and art give everyone a chance to tackle difficult topics.
— How did the audience react to the Maria project? Do you remember any feedback or reactions?
— The Maria project has become known far beyond Ukraine, traveling to different countries. In Ukraine, the exhibition started around 2020, visiting 6-7 cities with the support of the Ukrainian World Congress. The last place was Kharkiv, where it was at the beginning of the full-scale war. It was later moved and exhibited in western Ukraine. Unfortunately, I was not present during any of the Ukrainian presentations. This is difficult for me, because the project only makes sense when people interact with it. However, I know that the exhibition evoked a deep response.
One of the key elements of the exhibition was interactive work: we disassembled the book Maria, creating a wall of pages strung on nails. People could take a page, write on it their memories of the Holodomor, if they had any in their families, and attach it back to the wall. This created a living dialog between the past and the present.
One of the most important reactions I remember was from a curator who said: “It's extremely beautiful, and it's about genocide.” I have never worked with the intention of creating something beautiful, but it is this aesthetic that helps people engage with difficult topics. She explained: “If it were just images of hunger and death, people, especially children, might be afraid and avoid it. But your work creates a way to perception through beauty. People start interacting with it and then delve into the story if they want to know more.”
This concept became the basis for the Mobile Memorial, which allows people to participate in the memory of the Holodomor at different levels, gradually delving into the topic.
The exhibition project included two videos: Animatas #1 and Animatas #2. The title is based on the Latin word “animati” - “souls”. In the video, old photographs printed on fabric are hung between trees like laundry. The wind blows the fabric, and the images seem alive - people's figures move, flicker, reminding us of souls who have long since left this world.
The difference between the two videos is time: one was shot during the day and the other at night. The sound is a monotonous hum that creates the effect of a spiritual connection with the past.
One of my most important works was the art book Transfiguration, which was included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Library of Congress, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and other prestigious institutions. This was an important moment for me, because many of these institutions do not have similar materials on the Holodomor.
A few weeks ago, I spoke with the head of the Library of Congress, who said: “Your books are important because they open up complex topics through art, helping people who know nothing about it to join the conversation.”
The exhibition materials are currently on display in Vinnytsia. You can see it in an electronic version on the website of the Holodomor Genocide Museum.
“My goal has always been to create works that touch on an emotional level. At a time when the world is tired of war and tragedy, such materials can stir people's hearts, awaken empathy, and encourage understanding. I want people not just to look at these works, but to feel them. Through wax, ashes, paper, and prayers, I tried to convey a tragedy that is difficult to comprehend intellectually. This art invites not only to think, but also to experience, touch, and feel. It is a way to open the way to a conversation about pain and loss, which we often remain silent about.
Lesia Maruschak is a Canadian photographer and artist of Ukrainian descent, known for her projects that explore the themes of historical memory, national identity, and the tragedies of the Ukrainian people. Through photography, archival materials, and installations, Lesia Maruschak explores the histories of colonized peoples and their transformations under the influence of geopolitical factors, as well as the individual and collective cultural consequences of exile. Her narrative exhibitions with static and dynamic images and rough and delicate sculptural elements have been presented in over 65 museums, galleries, and art spaces around the world. Her most famous project in Ukraine is dedicated to the Holodomor of 1932-1933 and is called Project MARIA, which was shown in nine countries. The book based on the project was shortlisted for the book prize at the influential international photo festival Rencontres d'Arles in France (2019) and received the award for best design at the international festival Book Arsenal in Kyiv (2019). The book MARIA was developed in collaboration with Elias Zhekalov, REDZET Kyiv. In September 2020, The Guardian published photos from the MARIA project in an article about the best photos from the Landskrona festival.
We worked on the material:
Researcher of the topic, author of the text: Vira Labych
Editor-in-chief: Viacheslav Ratynskyi
Literary editor: Yulia Futey
Website manager: Vladyslav Kukhar
UAPP is an independent association of professional Ukrainian photographers, designed to protect their interests, support, develop and promote Ukrainian photography as an important element of national culture.
UAPP's activities span educational, social, research and cultural initiatives, as well as book publishing.
UAPP represents Ukrainian professional photography in the international photographic community and is an official member of the Federation of European Photographers (FEP) — an international organization representing more than 50,000 professional photographers in Europe and other countries around the world.
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