From darkness Light Emerges.

The barricades of Maidan represented for Russia the sin of a shift towards the West, the will of a people to assert its sovereignty and independence. For a dark and authoritarian state, this desire for openness and light had to be annihilated.

Since February 2022, Ukraine has been facing a devastating war across its entire territory. The destroyed buildings are legion; they dot the landscape, reminding us that chaos exists, that life has abandoned these devastated places, these structures torn apart by shells. Scenes of ruins, gaping walls, collapsed roofs, furniture scattered on the ground, lives also fractured.

Destruction fascinates us all, as does death. It terrifies us as well, confronting us with our own end, like a memento mori. If destruction fascinates me, it is not because of its morbid side; it is not truly anxiety-inducing in my eyes; on the contrary, it reminds me that life once inhabited these places. It evokes a certain melancholy, a reminiscence of what life was before in these spaces—certainly of what was and will probably never be again, but also of what will be. Of the hope of renewal. Families and individuals lived in or frequented these buildings where I go inside to install my light. Places of life, work, or leisure. These buildings are filled with stories, those of the events that took place there.

« Through the cracks in us, light penetrates » sounds like a message of hope and life. From the depths of an abyss, light can spring forth; darkness cannot annihilate hope, death cannot contain the spark of life.

These ruins evoke our own vulnerability; they reflect our own lives, fragile as they are, our own dramas; they remind us that we are not permanent. Yet the light reminds us that, in the face of our own disappearance, life continues and asserts itself no matter what happens.

Light enters, finds its own way, inexorably, just as life has done for millennia.
These buildings, like the Ukrainian people, these women and men, are damaged, broken, but remain standing, cracked but not collapsed.
They symbolize the resilience of the Ukrainian people and the hope that inhabits an entire nation. Thus, this is not about celebrating destruction, but rather renewal and better days. Life stronger than destruction. Hope stronger than despair.
Light stronger than darkness.