11 April 2026
(PHOTO: Intent/Natalia Dovbysh)
Artist and fashion designer Volodymyr Umanenko has pasted new posters on the wall where he launched the project "Freedom is not Death" in Odesa in March 2022.
According to an international correspondent, it is the same place where the artist started the project in 2022 near the Book market in Odesa.
Before the New Year, the wall was hung with a festive banner, but now it has been removed, so the artist decided to resume the exhibition. The posters on the wall are not by Volodymyr Umanenko himself, but they are directed against Russian aggression and the war in general.
The project started in March 2022, at the so-called "Book" exhibition, which gathered works by artists from all over Ukraine on one topic-the Russian-Ukrainian war. The idea was clear: it's important to live, it's important to tell the unpleasant truth about the war, getting rid of the fear of death.
It was there, at the Book, that the song "Kira" was first performed by the Odesa band "Fire Hydrant" in memory of three-month-old Kira Glodan. Then the surviving residents of the building and the families of the victims made a spontaneous memorial of children's toys, flowers, and candles.
The manifesto of this project was emphasized:
"We will never be the same as we were before the morning of February 24. The large-scale war unleashed by the Russians against all Ukrainians has completely changed everyone: adults and children alike. Many, unfortunately, will forever have psychological trauma from the horrors they have experienced, and some have been physically crippled by the war. But we must live and move forward to our freedom. "After all, freedom is not death!"
In August 2022, "Freedom is not Death" was held at the Museum of Western and Eastern Art. More than a hundred works by artists from different regions of the country were exhibited in four halls.
Кирило Бойко