The book contains over fifty interviews with artists, curators, and art critics, who talk about their reactions to contemporary events in Ukraine as citizens and as artists. Together with the author, they reflect on creative response of the modern art community to the events in Ukraine during the Revolution of Dignity and the war with Russia (before the full-scale invasion) and the role of art and artists in conflict.
The book includes over 100 reproductions of visual works that have been provided by the courtesy of artists, Ukrainian museums, and private galleries.
“Artists who record the overstrain of the present leave behind the artifacts for future cultural archaeologists. Socially engaged artists practice art because they understand the urgency of the situation, but even those artists who claim that they do not address the theme of war demonstrate the opposite in their works. It is this zone of conscious and subconscious artistic influence that creates the environment of this book.” — Olesya Gerashchenko (Shambur)