On August 29, the exhibition State of Will opens — a visual reflection on the theme of war, endurance and humanity.
It is based on the work of Dutch military photographer Eddie van Wessel, who has been documenting armed conflicts for more than 30 years, and for the past three years his lens has focused primarily on Russia's war against Ukraine.
This exhibition is not about war as destruction, but about man in war. In the lens are Ukrainian military and civilians, who, despite loss and darkness, retain the ability to feel, act and be together. Van Wessel's photographs capture what most often remains outside the news: tense anticipation, care, life at the front, connections between people.
The project is a continuation of the exhibition War Stories: Ukraine Up Close, which was first presented at the Netherlands War Museum in autumn 2024. In Ukraine, it takes on a new sound — as a visual conversation about the daily reality of millions of Ukrainians living in a state of war for more than ten years.
“For us, war has long ceased to be an abstract subject — it has become the background of life, its acute framework and invisible connection between people. Therefore, the focus is stubborn resilience, the ability to hold on to each other, to seek meaning and to remain human in the darkest times. It is important for us to talk about shared experiences: those at the front and those at the rear; about fear and hope, loss and new forms of intimacy, about the invisible threads that connect people in war,” the curators of the exhibition note.
Within the project On August 27 at 18:30 there will be a presentation of the book “Ukraine” by Eddie van Vessel A visual history of the last three years of the Great War.
Location:bookstore “Zbirka”, ul. Reitarskaya, 17.
The State of Will program will also be complemented by a series of public discussions on memory, the visual culture of war, narratives of resistance, urban practices, and the role of art in shaping the future. Among the participants are photographers, writers, journalists, memory researchers, urbanists, artists, military personnel and cultural managers.
The exhibition will last until November 2and will become a platform for talking about the experience of war — personal and shared, painful and formative.
Entrance free for exhibition on opening day. Entrance to the exhibition and all events within State of Will on subsequent days are subject to tickets.
The exhibition is organized on the initiative and with the support of the National Military Museum of the Netherlands. The host is the Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Center, a unique institution dedicated to the preservation, research and promotion of Ukrainian film heritage and the art of cinema. The curatorial work and implementation of the project is done by the team of the museum company Amuseum.
Project partners:National Museum of Military History, War Museum, Zbirka bookstore.
Information partners:Ukrainian PEN, Public Culture.
Eddie van Wessel— Dutch documentary photographer, one of Europe's leading war photographers. He has been working since the 1990s, filmed conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Ukraine. His style is deep humanity and fixation of everyday life against the background of disaster. He examines closely what war does to man — and to those closest to him.
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