When witnessing geopolitical events it can feel like you don’t have a voice, a way of expressing your disgust and anger. Until recently I have addressed this within my practice by looking to the past in order to generate a personal dialogue with conflict and occupation. This has involved in-depth research into the impact of war on the indirect and unknown victims of conflict. Visiting the scene of the event and documenting the lasting evidence of what happened, using photography, painting and the collection and categorisation of artefacts recovered from the site.
During the summer of 2024 I felt compelled to shift my focus to the current events happening on the eastern border of Europe with the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia and its allies on the 24th February 2022. I realised that my role as a lecturer in Fine Art was bringing me into contact with the victims of the war and their stories and experiences. But this was be being acknowledged or recorded. Within week I discovered a community of young displaced students. They had been forced to leave Ukraine, their homes, friends, and in many cases their families. I felt the need to seek out these young people and invite them to share their stories, photograph them and paint them.
In the long term the intention is to interview them to create a lasting testament to their experiences of war, their homes back in Ukraine and their lives in Manchester. Within weeks it became evident that this hidden community wanted to be part of the project. What I thought would be a handful of individual has become a large and interconnected community hiding in plain sight.
During the summer of 2024 I felt compelled to shift my focus to the current events happening on the eastern border of Europe with the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia and its allies on the 24th February 2022. I realised that my role as a lecturer in Fine Art was bringing me into contact with the victims of the war and their stories and experiences. But this was be being acknowledged or recorded. Within week I discovered a community of young displaced students. They had been forced to leave Ukraine, their homes, friends, and in many cases their families. I felt the need to seek out these young people and invite them to share their stories, photograph them and paint them.
In the long term the intention is to interview them to create a lasting testament to their experiences of war, their homes back in Ukraine and their lives in Manchester. Within weeks it became evident that this hidden community wanted to be part of the project. What I thought would be a handful of individual has become a large and interconnected community hiding in plain sight.