Mykola Kolomiets had never traveled outside Ukraine.
Arrived two days ago in Paris, he tries to make his mark.
"The sounds disturb me here, the planes especially... With each rumble I feel like I have to take shelter. But I try to keep it at bay, I'm here for work", he explains, shyly, through his translator.
This 39-year-old Ukrainian is the director of the artists' studio "Aza Nizi Maza" in Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv.
He came to France to present the exhibition "Under ground and on land", fruit of a collective work with children.
A unique and intense artistic experience, carried out last spring in the city's metro, where several hundred families had then taken refuge.
People shelter from shelling in a metro station, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Kharkiv, March 10, 2022. © Vitalii Hnidyi, File Photo, Reuters
Locked underground
From the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, launched on February 24, Kharkiv, the country's second largest city, was one of Moscow's priority targets.
At the beginning of March, while the Russian forces were blocked on the outskirts of the megalopolis, Moscow intensified its bombardment campaign, forcing tens of thousands of civilians to take refuge underground.
“The metro was no longer working and people settled everywhere, on the platforms, in the carriages… In a few days, it became a real city”, explains Ivanna Skyba-Yakoubova, co-organizer of the exhibition.
The "Historical Museum" station, in the heart of the city, offers a large space which quickly becomes the playground for children, who run, heckle or stroll through the corridors on their skateboards to relieve boredom.
This is where Mykola decides to set up a temporary workshop.
“At the start, it was all about keeping the kids busy,” he says.
"Most of them had never participated in an artistic project, so I suggested that they let their imaginations run wild. Some began to draw abstract shapes or mosaics of colors, others characters or animals. Little by little we started thinking and transformed these works into collective artistic expression, each one bringing his piece to the puzzle around the messages they wanted to convey together".
Process of creating monumental works in the Kharkiv metro.
© "Aza Nizi Maza"
Children's views on war
In a few weeks, the austere metro station is transformed into an art gallery.
The small group of children and their new mentor create a series of monumental portraits on the pylons.
The "heroes" of the war figure prominently there in the guise of the nurse, the soldier and the volunteer as well as the Ukrainian family, without the father, gone to fight.
These portraits rub shoulders with more enigmatic frescoes such as the figure of an angel, entitled "New Ukraine", or that of a building, transformed into a flowerpot, to the glory of spring.
A series in bright colors, imbued with bucolic representations, which contrasts with sometimes very dark messages such as the gigantic bird of young Maks, 10 years old, accompanied by the phrase "War is darkness, the sky has been stolen from me" .
From the drawings of Kostya Bynokourov, Ira Tron, and Maks Zoubenko, all three aged 10.
© exhibition "Underground and on land"
"Some children remained underground for several days in a row without being able to get out and this situation lasted several months" explains Ivanna.
"Painting spring was for them a way of keeping in touch with their environment and enjoying nature's transformations, even though they couldn't see them with their own eyes. Their portraits reflect mixed feelings: the desire to escape, the carelessness but also deprivation and distress, because the situation was catastrophic in these corridors with only one toilet for several hundred people".
Consider what's next
At the end of May, the Ukrainian soldiers manage to push back the Russian forces towards the border and the city experiences a period of calm.
The mayor of Kharkiv then calls on the Ukrainians to leave their shelters and announces the resumption of the metro after a three-month interruption.
A semblance of normal life is slowly returning.
But the children are still largely deprived of school.
According to the mayor of Kharkiv, more than half of the city's 200 schools have been hit by strikes since the start of the war.
“It has become very difficult to study in Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion,” laments Ivanna.
"In Kharkiv, only a small number of schools that have a basement can receive students, as they need to be able to shelter them in the event of a strike. Online teaching has been implemented, but this tool is sometimes difficult access for children from low-income families".
"Before the war, I organized paid art workshops for children," explains Mykola.
"Most of these families have since left the city to take refuge in quieter places. The young people I worked with in the metro come from less privileged backgrounds. Most of them had never had contact with art. Since the reopening of the metro, we continue to work together in my studio but in a different way. I try to push them to deepen their own styles and also to work with textiles and ceramics with a view to selling. objects so that they can help their families. This is why I feel invested with a mission here in Paris."
New works by children from the "Aza Nizi Maza" studio © Aza Nizi Maza
After an extended weekend in the French capital to promote child labor, Mykola and Ivanna left for Ukraine on Monday.
A two-day trip with a stopover in Poland, then sixteen hours by train and seven hours by bus to reach Kharkiv, the country's airports having closed since the start of the war.
The exhibition "Under ground and on land", bringing together the works of Ukrainian children, is freely accessible at the town hall of the 11th arrondissement of Paris, from October 4 to November 4.
The summary of the
France 24 week invites you to come back to the news that marked the week
I subscribe
Take international news everywhere with you!
Download the France 24 app