«Untitled for now» is one of the projects selected as part of the third annual microgrant support program for Ukrainian documentary makers implemented by UAPP. The goal of the program is to support authors who continue to document the experience of a country resisting aggression and to create visual testimonies of events that define the history of contemporary Ukraine. The program is implemented with the support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Ukraine.
This project focuses on documenting the personal rituals of Ukrainian defenders on the front line — far from home and family. Before the full-scale invasion, many of them worked in creative professions, pursued sports careers, or created projects important to themselves and to society. Today, despite military duties and constant risks, they maintain practices that help them not lose a sense of their own identity.
These rituals are very different: some do sports, some make music or watch the stars, play a favorite instrument, or tend a small garden — and this is what supports their mental resilience and emotional balance. The starting point was the story of the author’s friend, who, together with her comrades-in-arms, planted a garden in a frontline village and cared for it with the words:
«I don’t know whether I’m taking care of the garden, or it’s taking care of me».
When traveling to frontline cities and towns, the author looks for opportunities to speak with service members and document the daily practices that matter to them. The project deliberately does not focus on glorification or direct depictions of war. It is about how people who were forced to become soldiers preserve themselves — the part that war cannot take away. Through these stories and moments of humanity, the project makes inner resilience and a living, complex human experience visible — and at the same time reminds us: the war continues.
«Writing music helps me put my head in order and control my emotions. It’s a kind of training — like in the gym, only more on a spiritual level.»
Before joining the military, Ravel was already a fairly well-known DJ, performed abroad and in Ukraine, and actively developed his career in the electronic scene. Now, while holding a responsible position in the military, he always finds time for music. During his service, his focus shifted to composing his own music, and he set up a studio for himself at his temporary location.
«Music is an outlet for me. Through it, I can release accumulated emotions, fatigue, or burnout, especially when there’s a lot of work and tension. It has always been part of my life, but now it helps even more — and I believe that music or shared jam sessions could become powerful therapy for other service members too.»
Blast is a professional drummer who volunteered to serve in 2022. He has the energy of a rock star — because, frankly, he is. He played in various bands, and now he plays in a hardcore band made up of active service members and founded in frontline realities in breaks between combat operations.
«I can’t imagine myself without music — it’s not just background or mood, but part of the composition of reality. I kept putting it off and was afraid to fully dedicate myself to music, but it turned out that I was afraid of the wrong thing. Music became a need to turn the experience I’ve gained not into traumas, but into works.
I’ve become less picky about my creativity and I release music when I can, not when some elusive perfection arrives. I live here and now and try to enjoy it, rather than wait for the “right moment” after the war.»
Oleh Hrabar is a musician known in his circles who, while serving in combat positions since early 2022, continues to create music, collaborate with other musicians, and be an artist who people listen to.
«The violin is spiritual calm. A piece of something that distracts from the gloom. Hope for the better.»
Friend Slon learned to play the violin from early childhood. As he says, his childhood was not easy, and playing the violin always calmed him. And now, between combat missions, Slon seeks calm and hope in playing the instrument.
«I thought it was just an ordinary hobby that I really, really want to do, and I eagerly look forward to coming back from a mission to look at the planned galaxies. But despite that, I noticed that I forget about my army existence in the very first minute of observing through the telescope — understanding the scale of any cosmic object, even this all-encompassing existential war immediately turns into 1,400 kilometers of ant-like fuss.»
After voluntarily mobilizing, Danylo became even more passionate about stargazing, which he loved as a child. After a combat mission, he always hurries to his telescopes. Currently, he has his own mobile observatory. In observing the stars, Danylo keeps an astronomy diary called “Astronomichne shchastia Donbasu”.
«This is the moment when I stop thinking. I like the feeling of great weight — as if I’m growing into the ground, but I still push the weight out. In it, a sense of control appears, especially when everything around feels uncontrollable.»
Stas has been serving since the start of the full-scale invasion, and he always trains wherever he is. With regular movements of his unit, he always carries 300 kilograms of iron with him.
“I don’t know whether I’m the one taking care of the garden, or the garden is taking care of me.”
Di went to serve in 2024 in a unit that cannot be talked about. She does very important work in the Zaporizhzhia direction. In the summer of 2025, she began planting a garden with her comrades near their location. I decided to photograph this phenomenon in the middle of the war, and that is how my project began.
Khrystyna (Kris) Voitkiv — a Ukrainian photographer and artist. Born in Ivano-Frankivsk, where she developed as an author; she currently lives and works in Kyiv. She came to photography in 2018: she started intuitively, working with close people and their intimate stories; in 2019 she took Serhii Melnychenko’s course, which helped her form a conceptual optics and a language of expression. In parallel, she works with video art and performative practices.
After the start of the full-scale invasion, she focused on volunteering and co-founded the girls’ association TSVIT, which provides support to the military. Together with service member and photographer Semen Kuchvara, for three years she created a joint intimate photo diary Us by Us — an archive of the couple’s meetings and trials during his service; the project entered the UKRAINIAN WARCHIVE and will be presented at the Sune Jonsson Center for Documentary Photography (Västerbottens museum). In 2023, Khrystyna co-founded the Ivano-Frankivsk-based art collective Memory Lab, which implemented three multidisciplinary projects supported by UNESCO, the Ukrainian Emergency Art Fund, PerForma, and Goethe-Institut.
