How these Ukrainian artists are utilizing their skills to assist the struggle effort

In an auto storage in an industrial district of Kyiv, Ukraine, the employees are busy. Broken automobiles are hauled by way of the gates at common intervals with shattered home windows and gouged our bodies. Automobiles are pieced collectively, home windows changed, holes patched. Others are available intact and go straight to the again for a makeover, the place 4 males in respiratory masks sweat as they work in a haze of aerosol paint, masking every automobile in distinctive combos of inexperienced, brown, grey and auburn with the practiced, fluid actions of their spray cans.

Earlier than Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, this was an everyday auto physique store, and the painters have been one among Kyiv’s well-known graffiti crews, ETC, portray buildings and murals. Now, the graffiti writers work full time to camouflage automobiles for his or her navy earlier than they ship them east.

The Ukrainian struggle effort has been cobbled collectively by way of crowdfunding and volunteer initiatives. Together with drones, medical kits and physique armor, tens of millions of Ukrainians have donated non-public autos to assist transport their defenders on the entrance, and chipped in for the acquisition of automobiles and vans from overseas.

Like so many Ukrainians, Neak, 43, one of many painters, requested himself what he may do to greatest assist the navy when the full-scale invasion started. He rapidly realized his experience with graffiti allowed him to good the complicated artwork of obscuring autos from snipers, artillery and the digital eyes of Russian drones. He’s requested to be recognized solely by his graffiti identify to guard his security and the protection of their undertaking.

For many of the previous two years, ETC has painted practically 5 days every week. They estimate they’ve completed over 600 automobiles, a number of tanks and lately a helicopter. They do the work on a volunteer foundation and fundraise their very own supplies for the trigger when they should.

“There are no true blacks or whites in nature, so we’re careful to cover those. Anything shiny — a mirror or piece of metal — might attract snipers,” Neak explains. Generally, they journey to the entrance themselves to color tanks and bigger autos to raised match the altering seasons or a brand new location.

He typically chats instantly with the troopers who will use the automotive in an effort to get the colours proper. “I ask what direction — south or east, because east is more green forest, and south is more like desert; still green, but more brown and terracotta. In Donbas, the soil is reddish. No two cars are the same,” Neak says. He laughs — typically, it’s laborious to extract the palette from these conversations. “They say, ‘Here there is a lot of dirt,’ and I say, ‘OK, but is it red or brown or gray?’ They say, ‘It’s dirt!’ Then I maybe ask for a picture.”

Too typically, they see the automobiles they’ve painted come again in items, and after they’re repaired, they begin over. With many buddies and former crew members preventing on the entrance, they fight laborious to concentrate on the job they’ll do and the way it helps. Because the struggle drags on, most of the painters have left the craft to combat on the entrance traces. At the moment there are solely two ETC members left portray in Kyiv, the remaining are preventing.

In Maidan Sq., in central Kyiv, pedestrians hustle throughout the sprawling plaza to and from work. Individuals line up at kiosks for espresso and scorching canines. {Couples} eat ice cream and buyers mill out and in of close by shops. Women promote bracelets to boost cash for the armed forces and households pay their respects at a memorial made up of hundreds of Ukrainian flags planted within the floor, every representing one of many nation’s fallen troopers. In February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy introduced that about 31,000 Ukrainian troopers had died because the full-scale invasion started, however many imagine the precise quantity is greater, and has definitely climbed dramatically in latest months. Many fallen troopers started their combat in Maidan 10 years in the past, when the “Revolution of Dignity” ousted Russian-backed President Viktor Yanukovych and Russia responded by annexing Crimea, starting the a long time lengthy battle that escalated with Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Perched on a large terraced staircase on the sq., a gaggle of about 15 teenage women strikes out and in of choreographed formations with practiced ease in coordinated outfits. They dance and lip-synch instantly right into a digital camera mounted on a gimbal as a Ok-pop observe loops from a conveyable speaker. On the finish of every take, they cluster across the digital camera’s LCD display to play again their efficiency, scanning for errors of their choreography and guffawing.

The women go by Phantom Blue they usually’re a part of a global neighborhood who do Ok-pop cowl dances. They mimic the choreography and styling of Ok-pop tracks, tape them in public locations and compete on-line for views and likes.

For every cowl, the dancers lease a rehearsal house and drill the strikes to perfection, and make distinctive costumes with particular ideas and themes, in addition to outtake movies and video games to play for his or her viewers. They select stage names and favourite talismans and equipment, and buddies, companions and households come out to assist with cameras, hair, make-up and snacks. They repeat the dance again and again till their chief, Yulya Batrak, who goes by Kora, deems it good, as they appeal to curious and admiring stares from a whole bunch of passersby. On this stormy day in Kyiv, they danced in a light-weight drizzle after which scurried beneath umbrellas to guard their cameras and make-up till the clouds handed they usually may begin once more.

Crews like this may be present in public areas and video-sharing platforms everywhere in the world, however beneath Phantom Blue’s movies, there’s at all times a hyperlink to a crowdfunding platform the place the group’s supporters can donate cash for Ukraine’s navy. Their takes are sometimes interrupted by air raid sirens and typically the sound of Kyiv’s formidable air protection system. When requested what number of members had buddies, companions or household within the navy, the reply got here with lowered heads and unhappy eyes — just about everybody.

Kora, the group’s 20-year-old chief, says she typically seems like she’s “living a divided reality. I’m dancing and I feel normal, then you open your phone and Russia has bombed another city … but dancing helps us keep calm. Life goes on and war goes on, but when we’re dancing, we feel we have courage and power.”

The Cultural Forces: Music on the entrance traces

As Ukraine now enters a troublesome summer time with worldwide support wavering and Russian assaults grinding away at its territory whereas terrorizing its cities, there’s a pervasive recognition of the more and more vital position the humanities can play virtually and psychologically at combating the invisible wounds the nation faces, collectively.

In Novohrodivs’ka, a village in japanese Ukraine, troopers of all ages have faces creased with the load of latest preventing. They sit within the shade of deserted fruit timber exterior a house whose homeowners have lengthy since fled west. There’s an eerie stillness throughout their facial expressions, one thing past weariness, one thing vacant and painful.

As they wait, I sense that point strikes in another way right here. Maria Petrovska emerges from a shed behind a tree, in an olive inexperienced Ukrainian Vyshyvanka shirt, holding a bandura, a Ukrainian instrument someplace between a lute and a harp, and she or he slowly begins to attract a soothing melody from its strings.

Heavy eyes sharpen on her as her voice joins the chords. There’s an occasional rumble of outgoing fireplace lower than a mile away, however everybody right here is used to that. Petrovska, who selected to come back house to Ukraine on break from her research at BIMM Music Institute in Manchester, England, begins to sing to the group of possibly 40. Their drained our bodies start to lean ahead. She closes her eyes as she sings the primary tune, a standard Ukrainian love ballad, and the troopers start to thaw. One loosens his grip on the automated rifle in his lap and his laborious jaw softens. The second tune is defiant and patriotic and some crack smiles. When she performs Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” just a few wipe tears from their eyes. I hesitate to {photograph} the second as a result of it feels sacred, however no one appears to thoughts as I carry my digital camera.

Petrovska is adopted by Valery Dzekh, who tells a narrative of obligation and redemption by way of a shocking medium for the entrance traces: puppets. The artist from Kharkiv and son of a soldier weaves a narrative meant to encourage defenders to maintain preventing when morale is low, by way of the actions of handmade collectible figurines in a small pit of sand sculpted by his spouse again house. The day ends with a extra upbeat efficiency from a brass band, all carrying fatigues. The music will get raucous sufficient that I fear in regards to the noise we’re making simply a few miles from the entrance, however I’m comforted that not one of the folks right here who know struggle far too properly appear to be involved.

The musicians are a part of a program referred to as the Cultural Forces, an initiative based by Mykolai Sierga, a well-known Ukrainian musician and TV character, that brings Ukrainian artists and musicians collectively to carry out and lift morale for fighters from the entrance traces to navy hospitals. The troupe of musicians and artists tour the entrance traces in a scorching van, giving a number of live shows a day to brigades who’ve typically simply returned from heavy preventing.

This undertaking was supported by the Worldwide Ladies’s Media Basis.

Natalie Keyssar is a documentary photographer primarily based in Brooklyn, New York. See extra of her work on her web site nataliekeyssar.com or on instagram @nataliekeyssar.

Picture edit by Grace Widyatmadja. Textual content edit by Zachary Thompson and Alex Leff.