A project documenting life in Odesa and cities near the front lines has collected 50,000 photos

The Swiss-Ukrainian project “Ukrainian Photo Diary” has collected nearly 50,000 photos and stories from residents of Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, and other cities near the front lines. Based on this archive, a traveling exhibition titled “The Clock of War” has been created.

This was reported by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

The materials on the project’s website include photographs, videos, children’s drawings, and about four dozen stories.

Currently,the “Ukrainian Photo Diary” is on display in cities across Europe. Once the war ends, the entire archive is set to be transferred to a cultural institution in Ukraine as a historical record.

The first exhibition featuring photographs from the“War Clock” photo archive in Switzerland was held from February 24 to May 12, 2024, at the Old Catholic City Church in Olten. The exhibition was based on the concept of twelve losses as a symbolic “war clock.”

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On June 17, 2026, the photo exhibition took place at the Union Cultural Center in Basel (Switzerland). On the same day, a screening of a documentary video from the “War Clock” cultural project was held in Odesa.

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The project was initiated by Swiss photographer Patrick Lüthi. He began collecting material about life during the war at the very start of the full-scale Russian invasion, when he and his colleagues were helping to evacuate refugees from the Ukrainian border to Switzerland. 

In November 2022, he was looking for contacts in Ukraine. Maya Makeyeva saw this on social media and subsequently began finding photographers and topics for the project in Ukraine. This made it possible to establish collaboration between the Swiss initiative and Ukrainian creators. 

As of now, Maya Makeyeva has completed her work on this photo archive. The project itself continues to evolve. Vyacheslav Onishchenko currently serves as the representative and coordinator of the “Ukrainian Photo Diary” in Odesa.

Юлія Калабайда