Reflection of photographer Yurko Dyachishin on the first day of a full-scale invasion
On February 24, 2022, photographer Yurko Diachyshyn was in his hometown Lviv. He did not believe in the possibility of a full-scale war.
“I woke up at night and heard from my wife, who was reading the news on her smartphone, that the war had begun. I turned to the other side, they say it was fake, and I will see everything in the morning,” says Yurko. When I realized that the war was really happening, I started reading the news. “At that time he was ill and in poor physical shape. However, the reporter's reflex worked: he packed his camera, got dressed and sat down in the corridor waiting for the explosions to start now, land a landing, or something else. At the same time, the air alarm siren went off for the first time,” recalls the photographer.
Yurko Diachishin has been cooperating with AFP since 2009. Around six in the morning he was called by one of the editors and Yurko went to the city in search of stories. In Lviv there was the first wave of panic: everyone was going somewhere, huge queues arose near ATMs and gas stations. Yurko and his wife decided not to leave Lviv, they did not even collect the alarming suitcase.
In the following days, Yurko photographed daily: donors at the blood center, the first volunteer warehouses, the arrival of evacuation trains at the railway station, the departure of people abroad, the placement of internally displaced families in gyms and theaters, the weaving of camouflage nets and other activities in the rear.
About two weeks after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, the first burials of dead military personnel began in Lviv. “For the first time I filmed the funeral in early March 2022 — it was very difficult and I told myself that I would not go on such a shoot again. The very next day I filmed the funeral again,” says Yurko. He explains that in the early days there was no “excitement” or emotion from the work, as well as the thoughts of shooting a project about the war or reflecting more deeply on the subject. Yurko did not even select photos in separate folders, as it was before.
After a few weeks, colleagues began organizing charity auctions and exhibitions abroad, asking for photographs. “It motivated me to look at my photos differently, because they could bring money to the military and all those in need,” says Dyachishin.
Until February 24, 2022, the photographer worked on many creative projects, had many plans for exhibitions. “With the beginning of the war, I completely lost my taste for creativity and art, what was meaningful disappeared,” says Dyachishin. There were attempts to continue the projects, the photographer even agreed to hold the exhibition “Carpathian Shepherds” in the summer of 2022.
Among the latest creative series of Yurko Dyachishin is the project “War Nouveau”, a kind of fictional architectural style (the play of words War and Art Nouveau). “War Nouveau” represents the protective sandbags that are now part of the new urban landscape as the architectural form that surrounds us. “There is a saying: “Everything that is now postponed is automatically lost.” I took it for myself as a slogan that makes me try to think and do something creatively,” says Yurko Dyachyshyn.
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