Lesia Marushchak: “OUR RIUKZAK: Maria + Yegor” is an art project that connects the past and the present
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Canadian photographer of Ukrainian descent Lesia Marushchak presents a new art project called OUR RIUKZAK: Maria + Yegor”. It tells the story of the current realities of the war in Ukraine, in particular through the prism of children's experience. The project also aims to tell about genocide and national identity through photography and art.
Maria and Yehor - symbols of two genocides
The main idea of the project focuses on the psychological trauma of children caused by war. The name “OUR RUKZAK” symbolizes the things that children took with them on the road when they were forced to leave their homes because of the fighting. The central figures of the project are two children, Maria and Yehor.
“Maria is a symbol of the Holodomor. She is a reference to my previous project Project MARIA. Yegor symbolizes the current war, he is from The New York Times article by Lynsey Adarrio. Thus, we associate two cruel atrocities with the names of two children,” explains Lesia.
11-year-old Yehor had to leave his home, fleeing from eastern Ukraine to the west because of the war. His story became a source of inspiration for the artist.
“This project is about children, the Holodomor, and modern warfare. It was important for me to connect historical events with what is happening today and show people that this is not just a modern war, but a systematic attempt to destroy the Ukrainian people. The project is bilingual - in Ukrainian and English, which allows it to be shown both in Ukraine and abroad. We have printed the first copies, and I hope that some organization will support us and help us distribute this project both in Ukraine and in other countries,” says Lesia Marushchak. She said that they have already managed to print two models of the project with the support of the Ukrainian World Congress and the Canada Council for the Arts. However, additional funding is still needed for the publication and exhibition.
The author of the project collaborated with well-known Ukrainian photographers, including Roman Pyatkovka, Yevhen Malolhetka, Artem Gumilevsky, Serhiy Melnychenko, Taras Bychko, Olena Hrom, Maksym Dondiuk, and Olena Tita. In total, the project features 26 posters of various sizes and 91 images that allow us to explore the topic of war, genocide, and national memory through different photographs.
Part of the project is a book with thematic articles by well-known authors, including Dr. Christina Hook, who has been researching genocide for many years, Julia Boonen, who analyzes new representations of war in photography, and Michael Bociurkiw, a Canadian journalist working in Ukraine.
“These texts complement the photographic material, providing a deeper context for understanding the events and their consequences for Ukrainian society,” explains Lesia. ”We also created a series of cards with information about each artist that can be used at the exhibition. The idea is to give anyone the opportunity to organize such an exhibition in different circles, communities and institutions to talk about war, photography, children and trauma.”
The project “OUR RIUKZAK: Maria + Yegor” is not only artistic, but also interactive: viewers can interact with the posters, look at photos of different formats and discuss the topic of the war, which has been going on for 11 years.
“The project “OUR RIUKZAK: Maria + Yegor“ is not just a project about the war, it is an important contribution to the preservation of the cultural and national heritage of the Ukrainian people,” emphasizes the author.
Next steps.
Lesia calls on organizations and cultural foundations to support her project, which tells the story of the war in Ukraine through the lens of documentary photography and historical analogies. She is currently trying to attract partners for further publication and distribution of this project.
“I realized that fundraising is a difficult process, even when the project has a strong message. People are not tired of the war, they just have to make hard choices about what to spend their resources on. But I believe that I will find a way to implement this project, it just takes patience,” Marushchak says.
“The first copies were made by the REDZET printing house of Ilya Zhekalov and Tanya Zhekalova. They also printed my first book, MARIA, which won the Most Beautiful Book award at the Kyiv International Book Fair in 2019 and was recognized as the best experimental book,” says Lesia.
Ukrainian and international exhibitions
The project will be presented for the first time on March 6-8 this year in the United States at the University of Notre Dame during the opening of the Ukrainian Research Center. In addition, Lesia Maruschak will take part in the conference “Conflict and Creation” to talk about her work.
“Together with OUR RIUKZAK, the project Poetry of Our Children (dedicated to Ukrainian children who became victims and witnesses of forced displacement, abduction, discrimination, and genocide in the twentieth century and today - ed.) And while I'm not at the conference panels, I'll be sitting at the exhibition and writing the names of missing Ukrainian children,” the photographer notes.
After the US, the project will travel to the UK, where it will be presented in Derby, and possibly in other European cities. In Ukraine, the possibility of holding an open-air performance at the Memorial Complex of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War is being considered.
Lesia Marushchak is also known for her previous Project MARIA, dedicated to the memory of the Holodomor victims. She seeks to preserve the memory of the tragic events of the past and create new narratives about contemporary events in Ukraine through photography, installations, and archival materials.
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 more than 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.
We worked on the material:
Researcher of the topic, author of the text: Vira Labych
Editorial director: Olha Kovaleva
Literary editor: Yulia Futey
Website manager: Vladyslav Kukhar
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