The centrepiece of the exhibition is artist Veronika Mol’s work “This Could Be Silence” — 470 photographs of the sky above the graves of fallen Ukrainian defenders, accompanied by their names. Each photograph represents an individual fragment of memory; together, they form an image of a shared Ukrainian sky and remind us of the scale of human loss.
A separate section of the exhibition explores the history of the minute of silence, from its origins to its contemporary practice in Ukraine. The exhibition traces how this ritual became a way of collectively honouring the fallen and an integral part of Ukraine’s culture of remembrance.
“It is important to me to preserve the memory of the fallen defenders with dignity, while at the same time recognising the scale of this loss. Amid the multitude of names, every single one matters — just as individual fragments of the Ukrainian sky come together to form a single whole,” says artist and exhibition co-author Veronika Mol.
The history of the minute of silence provides another dimension to the exhibition. According to Kateryna Datsenko, co-founder of the Vshanui NGO, understanding the origins of this ritual helps us recognise its continuity and its place in Ukraine’s contemporary culture of remembrance.
“We so often lower our eyes to the ground.
But what about the sky?”
War Museum
Vshanui NGO