Main photo: Serhiy Hudak

On Friday, May 6th at 5 p.m will be the grand opening of a photography exhibit documenting the war in Ukraine. There will be a display of works by both Ukrainian and Estonian photographers.

Thanks to curator Kateryna Radchenko from Ukraine and the Okapi Gallery located in Tallinn, the exhibit is coming to Toronto.

The photos show crushed municipal and civil buildings, vehicles, and bridges; soldiers and ordinary citizens with weapons and Molotov cocktails; carrying the deceased ones and rescuing domestic animals; rolling suitcases on ruined streets, fire, and smoke in snowy trenches. The authors of the photos are the local street photographers Yurko Dyanchychyn, Serhiy Hudak, Mikhail Palinchak, Oleg Petrasiuk, Alina Smutko, Stas Yurchenko, Sergei Ylyashenko, Mstyslav Chernov, Sergey Korovayny, Volodymyr Petrov, Pavel Dorogoy, Viacheslav Ratynski, Oleksandr Ratushniak.

Besides the Ukrainian authors, the exhibition also features fresh shots from the front line by their Estonian counterpart Dmitry Kotjuh.

VEMU wishes to thank the partners: the Odesa Photo Days festival in Ukraine and the Okapi Gallery in Tallinn. VEMU and Cotton Factory in Hamilton are providing financial support for the project.

The exhibit will remain open until the end of July at VEMU (Tartu College, 310 Bloor St. W.). It can also be viewed at Toronto’s City Hall from May 7th-13th and in May and June at the Cotton Factory in Hamilton.