The “Face of Courage” project.
In the fall of 2023, our team, with the support of the Phoneo Association, invited 17 Ukrainian women to tell their stories about how their lives changed after the start of the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. Creating this project, we had several goals:
– to remind the world that war is not the statistics of victims, but the experience and destiny of each particular person;
– to provide support and an opportunity to restore strength to women who perform daily feats, desperately helping others;
– to highlight the role of women in society during the war.
For two weeks, the participants attended psychotherapy groups, walked under the peaceful sky of Cluj-Napoca, painted, sculpted, rode horses, sang, and lived a normal life. Almost normal. Because all this period of time they generously shared their life stories with the writer, who recorded every emotion and tear on paper. They worked with an fine artist who created body art on their faces, making them even more poignant and eloquent. They opened up in front of my photo camera, removing the masks of “strong women” and remaining women who hurt somewhere deep in their chest,.. where Ukraine is… They radiated with love and courage.
The presentation of the album, a powerful mix of words and visuals, took place on February 24, 2024. Look at these women’s faces! What do you feel when you look into their eyes?