Eastern Ukraine

Brotherland: War in Ukraine • Brendan Hoffman

Since protests in Kyiv drove President Viktor Yanukovych from power in February 2014, Eastern Ukraine has been convulsed by a rebel insurgency, inflamed by Russia, that has evolved into a full-fledged war centered in the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk – an industrial region known as Donbas.

At heart is a desire among the rebels for greater autonomy, out of widespread fear—justified or not—that Russian-speaking Ukrainians are at risk of political repression by the government in Kyiv. Russian propaganda has carried this storyline further, implying that the Ukrainian government is comprised of fascists and neo-Nazi Ukrainian nationalists. Russia itself has been widely accused of backing the rebels with weapons, cash, training, and fighters, prompting the deepest divide between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.

Ukraine’s economy has taken a massive blow. Huge expenditures on the war effort, combined with the loss of Crimea and much of the industrial output of Donbass, mean that international bailouts intended to stave off default may yet prove insufficient. Political reforms are inching along, corruption remains rampant, and the overall atmosphere of instability has kept away foreign investment.

Meanwhile, as always, civilians are falling victim to the indiscriminate effects of uncaring weapons. According to the United Nations, nearly 10,000 people have died in the conflict as of March 2017.

 

PROJECTS

Brotherland: War in Ukraine

By Brendan Hoffman

Since protests in Kyiv drove President Viktor Yanukovych from power in February 2014, eastern Ukraine has been convulsed by a Russian-led separatist insurgency that evolved into a full-fledged war centered in the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, an industrial region known as Donbas.

I’ve been photographing the war, and civilian life surrounding it, since its early days in April 2014, one of very few photographers to have continually worked on both sides.

Now, after six years, the war grinds on, stuck in an uneasy stalemate while delivering a steady stream of death and injury. For civilians living near the demarcation line, conflict is like the weather, an uncontrollable condition of the environment with which one must contend daily. Everyone continues their business as best they can with a practiced sense of normalcy, revealing the remarkable human ability to adapt and carry on.

For soldiers, enthusiasm for the cause, whether fueled by propaganda or patriotism, is tempered by the toil and terror of survival.

My portrayal takes a humanistic perspective to consider that the vast majority of people touched by this war, civilians and soldiers alike, on all sides, are victims whose lives have been irreversibly altered by forces beyond their control – forces that, as in all wars, originate with a deliberate choice to kill. My pictures also emphasize the inherent absurdity of armed conflict: the shock of the unimaginable juxtaposed with the utterly mundane. 

The difficult truth is that if war can happen in Donbas, it can happen anywhere.

 
 

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Exhibitions

2019 “Brotherland: War in Ukraine” Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Chicago, IL, USA
2019 “Brotherland: War in Ukraine” Chech Art Gallery, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine
2019 “Brotherland: War in Ukraine” Zaporizhzhia National University, Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine
2019 “Brotherland: War in Ukraine” Bohdan Khmelnytsky National University, Cherkasy, Ukraine
2019 “MISSING” Géopolis, Brussels, Belgium
2019 Benefit Auction, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, Nebraska, USA (group)
2018 “Brotherland: War in Ukraine” Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine
2018 “Brotherland: War in Ukraine” Sumy City Gallery, Sumy, Ukraine
2018 “Brotherland: War in Ukraine” Platforma TU, Mariupol, Ukraine
2017 “Uncertainty” Outdoor exhibition commissioned by ICRC, Vienna and various cities in Ukraine
2016 “Uncertainty” Outdoor exhibition commissioned by ICRC, Kyiv and Severodonetsk, Ukraine
2016 Visa pour l'Image, Perpignan, France (projection)

 

Publications

Battered Ukrainian City of Mariupol Braces for Worst as Rebels Close In, The New York Times