Year: 2022
Venue: Germany
When Russian troops invaded Ukraine in late February 2022, something happened that many could not have imagined: one European country attacked another. The conviction that the ethic of non-violence, the inviolability of borders and self-determination are the basis of coexistence in a democratic Europe has now proved to be an illusion. Since then, news and pictures from Ukraine have kept the world in suspense.
The works of famous Ukrainian photographers in our photo exhibition illustrate that the resolution of the war is not the beginning, but a dramatic aggravation of the long-standing conflict between the two states. They tell about the eventful history of the second largest European country since the declaration of independence in 1991.

Chronologically divided into four parts, the exhibition documents the struggle for state independence, national identity and democracy: from the raising of the Ukrainian state flag over the Parliament House in 1991, the activists of Euromaidan in front of burning barricades in 2014, the remains of a ruined house in the aftermath the launch of a school rocket in Donetsk region in 2017 to a wedding in the middle of the ruins of Kharkov in 2022.
For the sake of their work, Ukrainian photographers often risk their lives. Selected photos from the daily work of some journalists are a vivid example of this. In 2022, photographers shoot reports with a risk to life from the surrounded Mariupol. Their pictures flew all over the world.
