Painful Images: Ukraine 1993, 2014, and 2022

Ukrainian art, from the economic and political transformation of the 1990s through the events of 2014 (Crimea’s annexation and war in Donbas) to the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion in 2022, has been haunted in various ways by the question of trauma and loss. At the same time, however, the problem of trauma is not just a problem of war or conflict but is somehow inscribed in post-Soviet space. Photography has a special role to play here, as a medium constantly oscillating between visible and invisible and between presence and absence. Since traumatic images transform and question the medium, a discussion about trauma becomes a discussion about the image itself. This article analyses selected projects by Ukrainian artists in various disciplines made in three chronological moments: the first half of the 1990s, after 2014, and now, in response to the ongoing war. Each project touches in different ways on the issue of trauma and the traumatic view while also touching the broader level of relationships between affects, vision, and history.