I hope my ex has been killed by a rocket," says one message. "I feel ashamed that I miss my cats more than my own dad," writes somebody else. "I want to kill my father for his Soviet beliefs," confesses a third. "I can't wank," confides one person. Another: "I wank every day." And someone else: "I want to have amazing sex before the nuclear strike, but in two months, I haven't had the emotional resources to even open Tinder."
These intimate confessions are displayed on a wall of the Jam Factory, an elegant arts centre in the city of Lviv in western Ukraine. They are from a collection of anonymous wartime "secrets" artist Bohdana Zaiats collated using an online Google form, and posted on Instagram. Each provides a fleeting insight into the private, unsayable thoughts of Ukrainians reeling from the war.
It is one of the most fragile and vulnerable moments in the Jam Factory's opening exhibition, titled Our Years, Our Words, Our Losses, Our Searches, Our Us. The show - curated by Kateryna lakovlenko, Natalia Matsenko and Borys Filonenko - zooms in on such raw emotion, bringing together works that express the tender quiddities of inner lives in ways that journalism or documentary cannot. But it also zooms out-on to a historical panorama stretching back as far as the 19th century.
This story is from the February 23, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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This story is from the February 23, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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