An exhibition combining photography and theater opens in Odesa

The photo project Lesnaya: Freedom to Be Yourself, dedicated to the 155th anniversary of Lesya Ukrainka's birth, opened at the UNION Cultural Center.

An Int'l correspondent visited the exhibition.

The exhibition is positioned as a large-scale artistic statement that combines photography and theater in a modern reading of the philosophical core of Lesya Ukrainka's drama The Forest Song. The author of the project, photographer Olena Martyniuk, addresses the topic of freedom as an internal choice - the moment when a person refuses to compromise with his or her own essence. Through light, body plasticity, and natural landscapes, the classical text should acquire an extremely modern, psychologically accurate sound.

The project was created as a series of photographic illustrations for a book edition, but eventually grew into an independent exhibition - thanks to the audience and the professional community, who saw in these images a relevant story about choice, responsibility and the price of freedom. Professional theater actors took part in the filming; natural locations became full-fledged characters in the visual drama.

Earlier, the Archaica NGO, in partnership with the American non-profit organization CyArk and the Odesa Archaeological Museum of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, presented an open virtual exhibition Crossroads of Ukrainian History.

Also in Odesa, the O.V. Bleshchunov Municipal Museum of Personal Collections opened an exhibition of paintings by Svitlana Kryzhevska "The World of the Artist. Workshop". The exhibition "The World of the Artist. Workshop" offers a different - chamber and internal - view of the artist's work. It is an attempt to look into her creative laboratory, a space that usually remains closed to outsiders. The exhibition features a reproduction of a painting that was kept in the Mariupol Art Museum.

Кирило Бойко