One of the first things I learned in this job is that I鈥檓 not just writing about art; I鈥檓 writing about life, reflected through art.
Writing in June about Amidst Cries from the Rubble: Art of Loss and Resilience from Ukraine, an exhibition running through April 2025 at the Museum of International Folk Art, is a great example. It features art pulled from the battlefield in Ukraine, fashioned from implements of war such as bullet casings and ammunition boxes.
Amidst Cries from the Rubble brought Ukraine to 疯客直播 Fe鈥檚 doorstep not just through its subject matter, but via visits from three featured artists 鈥 two of whom still live in Ukraine. I wasn鈥檛 able to make it when Yaroslava Tkachuk and Serhii Polubotko attended an opening ceremony, but I had the good fortune to attend both a private dinner and a public speech and Q&A by Marta Syrko in mid-September. She spoke about the realities of living in a home with a wooden ceiling in Lviv, Ukraine, near where a missile had just landed and knowing she鈥檇 have little chance of survival if one were to fall on her home.
Syrko was in demand at both events and had just arrived for her first visit to the United States, so I gave her some breathing room but emailed her questions, which she replied to after departing New Mexico. I consider her answers an augmentation of the Amidst Cries from the Rubble 鈥 an education many of us Americans need 鈥 and present them here with the warning that they鈥檙e raw and real, not speculations regarding a best-case scenario.
What will happen if Russia defeats Ukraine?
Russia will annex Georgia next, invade Moldova, and then Hungary and Turkey will leave NATO. After Moldova they will attack the Baltics, which the weakened NATO will abandon, 鈥淎rticle 5鈥 will be as real as a UN condemnation putting the rest of Europe at risk of invasion or forced to create scattered military alliances and hard borders.
Trade, food logistics, and the global economy will collapse, meaning the price of food, fuel, and housing will exponentially explode worldwide as will the wealth gap and mass starvation. If NATO does decide to intervene, then a regional European war will break out, and hundreds of thousands if not millions will die, not to nuclear war but a war of attrition between states; think the current Ukrainian war times 20.
Around the world, China will take Taiwan and then whomever else, the rebellion in Myanmar will be crushed, and across Africa countries will collapse under new imperialist powers, starvation, and looting by Russia, China, Turkey, and the UAE through their resource corporations and preferred dictators. Maybe all this is too political, but it鈥檚 my true feelings. The main thing is that we cannot let Russia win. There are still a lot of people in Russia who support the invasion.
You live in Lviv. How do you deal with day-to-day realities in a country under attack?
I feel really bad. I have panic attacks all the time. I鈥檓 scared, and I don鈥檛 know what I will tell my children in 50 years, because I still live in Ukraine and I don鈥檛 know if I鈥檒l survive.
疯客直播 Fe is one of the first places in the U.S. you鈥檝e ever visited. What was your experience like?
I am so thankful to people who came to support me, who were listening to me and also viewing my work. It gives me great joy that people in 疯客直播 Fe can see my work and can understand the ideas and themes that I include in my work, especially effects of the war on the people of Ukraine.
