Katerina on the ruins of her house © Alena Grom

Alena Grom is a Ukranian artist and documentary photographer, working at the intersection of conceptual photography and social reporting. In April 2014, she was forced to leave her hometown due to military events in Eastern Ukraine, settling in Bucha, a town outside Kyiv. As a result of the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Grom and her family became refugees for the second time, but returned to Bucha after the de-occupation. These events largely affected her artistic practice. Photography became a salvation and a way to deal with the traumatic reality of war. Since 2016, Alena’s work has focused on places affected by military aggression. Her lens captures victims of the war, migrants and refugees, and war-torn Ukraine at large. However, her photographs are not illustrations of pity or grief. Life in spite of everything is one of her main themes.

Artists and war – these words’ combination evokes pictures sketched by the masters of a battle painting. The protagonist of such a genre is a soldier, a creator of victory. As a rule, society learns about a war from the perspective of a male about how to heroically fight, die and triumph. I narrate the war through subjective experience related to cultural memory, through the creative re-evaluation of my own life and as documented evidence for the events.

The idea of my work prevails over the form. The aesthetics in my work is secondary: though being not completely eliminated, it does not constitute the major to me. The aesthetics in the name of a pure form converts things into being useless, and the reality into a dead one.

I take a variety of approaches: from reportage to associations play, video, collages, using other people’s photography and archives. All these help me to express the idea and the feelings more deeply.

I sincerely believe that art is a power that can encourage people to participate in public dialogue. I create my projects partly in protest against the indifference. I feel responsible to myself and to those who fell victim to the war. An artist holds a responsibility. Together we are constructing a new political reality and an idea for the future. Art always sounds in tune with what is happening around.

The heroines of the Mavki. Camouflage project are real women, residents of the Ukrainian village of Gorenka, Buchansky District. In March 2022, the village was on the front line and suffered constant shelling. According to the UN, as a result of Russian aggression, 77% of the buildings in Gorenka were destroyed. For local residents, those events became a severe trauma, houses were destroyed and neighbours died before their eyes… The liberation of Kyiv Oblast gave an impetus to the reconstruction of the village and the restoration of social ties in the community, but the war continued. Striving to be useful members of the community, the women of Gorenka organissed the volunteer group Gorenski Mavky. They have different ages, different professions, and different social statuses, but they are united by the desire to do something important together.

Even the blackout of the winter of 2022-2023 did not prevent them — under the constant threat of rocket attacks, by candlelight, in the cold, the weaving of camouflage products continued. And now women continue to produce nets that imitate natural colors and «kikimori» — camouflage clothing for snipers and scouts, which makes the military invisible and saves lives. There is a constant need for such means, they go to the front as quickly as possible. Volunteers are convinced that camouflage products, woven with love and faith, have the power of charms.

In times of the most difficult trials, the people turn to their roots, to the common ground that has shaped their national identity for thousands of years. And today Ukrainian mythology has come in handy along with other components of culture. The folkloric character of the Mavky is one of the most famous, it is sung in legends, works of art, and in art. An ambivalent figure on the border between the worlds of the living and the dead, in recent times the mavka — including thanks to Lesya Ukrainka’s Forest Song — has become a symbol of victorious femininity, ardent self-sacrificing love. In every photo, female virtues are revealed: beauty, soft power, connection with nature, love, care for family, sincerity, unity with friends. The heroines of the photos do not destroy, do not seek revenge for destroyed homes and lives — they protect the present, build a future for new generations on their land. This future must be defended in war, and Mavka, a Ukrainian woman, stood by her soldiers.

This project resonates with Andy Warhol’s famous project «Camouflage» / Camouflage (1986), where the contrast between the impersonality of camouflage and the bright individuality of the portrait was used. The camouflage motif also appeared in the clothes that Andy Warhol created in collaboration with fashion designer Stephen Sprouse. Camouflage as an abstract pattern offers a number of interpretations: from stealth to courage, from the beauty of an idyllic landscape to the nervous tension of a sniper. Such an allusion shows the heroines of the project in their vulnerability and at the same time as protectors and guardians, whose strength is nature itself.

Camouflage © Alena Grom

Galina on the ruins of her house © Alena Grom

Local residents of Gorenka against the backdrop of a rural landscape © Alena Grom

Maria © Alena Grom

Mavki at a checkpoint near Gorenka © Alena Grom

Mavki on a tree © Alena Grom

Residents of Gorenka near the lake © Alena Grom

Three Mavkis © Alena Grom

Two Mavkas © Alena Grom

Valentina © Alena Grom

Women at a military checkpoint © Alena Grom

Women near the explosion crater © Alena Grom