exhibition

At the exhibition, the war in Ukraine is shown differently than we see it in the media every day. No military action, no blood, no damage. Instead – human emotions, personal histories, everyday life marked by the terror of war. This is how it is documented by one of the most extraordinary photojournalists – Justyna Mielnikiewicz. Her latest photographs will have their premiere display at the International Cultural Centre.

Justyna Mielnikiewicz is a Polish photographer who lives in Tbilisi, Georgia. For years, she has been photographing the post-Soviet East, its conflict zones and places that were or still are affected by war. Her award-winning photos were published in European and American newspapers and magazines. For her, emotions are the most important element in photography, which is why she deliberately omits documenting military operations, focusing on human microhistories. By concentrating on individuals, she can talk about universal experiences – this is how she understands her duty as a journalist. She does not present extreme situations, she does not turn the victims of history and war into the victims of her camera and does not allow viewers to prey on their suffering. She captures individual life stories, unexpectedly and tragically entangled in the history of the region and Russia’s aggressive politics.

The prologue of the exhibition at the ICC consists of photos from her album “Ukraine runs through it”, which shows events, people, and their stories from the “Revolution of Dignity” to 2019. The remaining, never-before-published photographs, were created in recent months and refer to the current war. They present a record of human drama, separation, destruction, death, injustice and emptiness, and comment on events unfolding before our eyes. Above all, however, they show that even right behind the front lines, life still goes on, and people fight with all their strength to maintain everyday substitutes for normality. The author subtly shows the amplitudes of feelings and events, sometimes even entering intimate privacy. These are attempts to find oneself in a devastated reality, short moments of great emotions, of celebration of stolen moments, clinging to what has survived the violence.

The protagonists of Mielnikiewicz’s photos are primarily civilians: women, children, volunteers, refugees, soldiers, silent heroes and innocent victims of armed Russian aggression. Also animals whose suffering deserves to be articulated as well. Each of the photographs presented at the exhibition has the value of punctum, i.e. the ability to evoke powerful emotions, and at the same time create an aesthetic and visual layer. The pictures come with descriptions prepared in three languages: Polish, English, and Ukrainian, without which it is impossible to understand the individual stories captured in the frames. The photographer talks about the war from the perspective of particular people, providing their name, profession, religion, and background, thus anchoring them in time and space. That is why among the most important elements of exhibition design are geographic coordinates and maps placed on the floor, which help viewers understand the topography of Ukraine. The narrative and structural coherence of the exhibition is also reflected in the presentation of the photographs. Their display on walls, but also as large-format panels and translucent fabrics, allows for a closer and more realistic reception.

The exhibition of works by Justyna Mielnikiewicz is yet another show at the ICC devoted to Ukraine, organised over the course of this year. Just before the outbreak of the war, we closed the exhibition “Ukraine. A Different Angle of Neighbourhood”, an attempt to revise the myths, stereotypes, and mutual Polish-Ukrainian perceptions. The exhibitions presented earlier dealt with both historical and contemporary issues. Exhibitions such as “The Borderlands Rediscovered. The Common Heritage of Poland and Ukraine” (2005) and “Lviv, 24th June 1937. City, Architecture, Modernism” (2017) helped raise awareness of the importance of initiatives aimed to save our common heritage, while the exhibition “The Myth of Galicia” (2014) confronted myths with historical events. The exhibition “Maidan Through the Lens of Jakub Szymczuk” (2016) visualised the extraordinary history of the Kiev Maidan, which was the greatest shock in Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall, while “Ukraine. Waiting for a Hero. Kostyrko, Rawski” (2016) emphasised the relationship of contemporary art production with current events in country.

The exhibition “In Ukraine. Justyna Mielnikiewicz” is on show from 2 September to 6 November 2022 on the patio of the International Cultural Centre at Rynek Główny 25 in Krakow.

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