Patrick Lüthi: "I would advise myself to be less naive"

Patrick Lüthi, a Swiss photographer and founder of the volunteer project “Ukrainian Photo Diary,” spoke about creating an open wartime archive, helping civilians, and rethinking the concepts of peace and security. In his view, the main purpose during wartime is taking responsibility for others. 

How did you decide to become a volunteer at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine?

On the day of the Russian invasion, our carnival was just getting started. As a reporter for a local newspaper, I was photographing the start of the festivities, driving from one event to another, and I was surprised that everyone was reacting strangely and constantly looking at their smartphones. It wasn’t until later that I found out Russian troops had invaded Ukraine. 

In the days and weeks that followed, there was a tremendous outpouring of solidarity with the people of Ukraine in Switzerland. Almost every community was collecting aid; there were drop-off points where people could bring clothes, food, and other items, and humanitarian aid shipments were being organized. I wanted to do something, too. Eventually, I rented a minibus and, together with another photographer I knew, made my first trip to deliver humanitarian aid. On the way back, we picked up seven people from Ukraine and brought them to Switzerland. That was the beginning.

Later, fewer people were leaving Ukraine, and I started thinking about what else could be done. That’s when I came up with the idea of creating the “Ukrainian Photo Diary.” I wanted to create an open photo archive that would include photos not only from professional photographers but also from amateurs, schools, and children. It was meant to be a record of the era, showing what has been happening in Ukraine since the start of the war: not just photos from the front lines, but also from everyday life.

What did you learn about Ukrainians through this project?

I realized from the very beginning that I wouldn’t be able to carry out the project on my own because of the language barrier. I needed help. So, using translation apps, I started looking for photographers and organizations in Ukraine that could help me.

Unfortunately, I quickly realized that Ukrainian media organizations weren’t particularly interested in this idea. After a long search, only one photographer responded. Eventually, he introduced me to an artist who became the first coordinator of the “Ukrainian Photo Diary.” She took on the task of finding photographers and helped me create the Ukrainian version of our website. Today, the website is trilingual—it operates in Ukrainian, English, and German.

I now know a few Ukrainian words and am constantly trying to learn the Ukrainian alphabet. When I was helping to evacuate Ukrainians to Switzerland, I noticed that some of them spoke Russian. Gradually, I began to understand just how complex the language issue is in Ukraine. 

I’m always amazed by how firmly convinced Ukrainians are that they will win this war. The way Ukraine is defending itself against the aggressor is truly inspiring. I think it’s precisely this faith and determination that are among the reasons why Ukraine continues to defend itself successfully.

Which photo from the collection impressed you the most, and why?

At the start of the project, in the fall of 2022, we weren’t receiving that many photos yet. But one photograph moved me deeply. It’s a shot by Vyacheslav Onishchenko, a photographer from Odesa. The photograph shows a little girl against a backdrop of Ukrainian flags. I chose this very photograph as the cover image for our book dedicated to the exhibition.

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PHOTO: Vyacheslav Onishchenko

Later, I received a photograph by Ida Sidash, a photographer from Kyiv. It shows a Ukrainian soldier on leave from the front, spending time with his child at a playground in winter. The photograph can also be seen on the homepage of our website, and I’m using it to promote our traveling exhibition.

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A Ukrainian Armed Forces soldier with his son. PHOTO: Ida Sidash

As a photo editor, I review and verify every single image. Sometimes I can’t hold back my tears. 

New photos are constantly being added to our archive, and time and again, we come across images that are incredibly moving. Photos of children and civilians are particularly touching. When you look at such photos, it often feels as if you’re making eye contact with the person in the picture. A certain closeness arises, along with a strong sense of connection and empathy between the photograph and the viewer.

Were there any photos you rejected?

I review every photograph we receive. During one of our first exhibitions in Odesa, one photograph was censored and removed from the exhibition. It showed a person leaving a room, while Putin’s address on the day the full-scale invasion began was being broadcast on a TV screen in the living room.

There are also other photos that we do not include in our photo archive at all and do not publish. These include, in particular, explicit scenes of torture and especially graphic photos of deceased people.

In our traveling exhibition, we deliberately chose not to include photographs showing blood or the faces of the deceased, particularly fallen soldiers. We did not want to show such photographs because it is important to us to maintain respect for the deceased and not to make the exhibition excessively graphic.

At the same time, the exhibition includes a photograph of a burial, as well as photographs of people in body bags. We do not hide the reality of war, but we have deliberately chosen not to show close-up images of the deceased.

It was also important to us that children be able to visit and view our traveling exhibition. That is why we were very careful in selecting the photographs.

However, the exhibition catalog includes one photograph depicting a deceased woman. According to available information, she was shot by Russian soldiers. She lies on the ground among her dogs, which were also killed; her face is visible. At first glance, the photograph looks as if the woman is simply sleeping. In reality, she is dead.

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The woman and her two dogs were killed in the center of Bakhmut as a result of a Russian strike. PHOTO: Heorhii Ivanchenko

I thought long and hard about whether to include this photograph in our book. It’s a shocking image, but there’s no blood in it. Ultimately, I decided to include it in the book as a historical document that attests to the reality of this war.

What do you plan to do with materials that cannot be shown publicly but are important to historians?

I must comply with Swiss law, where I work and where the archive is currently stored. If material is unsuitable for publication but its storage is permitted by law, I can keep it separately, outside the public portion of the archive. If, however, its storage violates the law, I will delete it.

Once the war is over, I would like to transfer the archive to an appropriate institution in Ukraine—an archive, a museum, a research institution, or another cultural institution. I am already in contact with Ukrainian archival institutions that are interested in this type of documentation. 

Is there a photograph you’d like to add to the archive but isn’t there yet? What kind of photo would that be?

I like that this project is open to everyone. We have no limits on the number of photos, and there is no predetermined list of topics we want or don’t want to see. The only condition is that the materials must comply with legal requirements and the principles of our project.

So I can’t say that there’s any specific photo missing from our archive. On the contrary, every day I’m amazed by the new photos we receive and by how varied people’s perspectives on life in Ukraine during the war can be.

Most of all, I’d like to see more new photographers and people interested in photography join our collaborative project.

Was there a moment when you wanted to stop the project? If so, why?

That’s an interesting question. Yes, there were actually moments when I asked myself why I was doing this at all.

The first time I seriously thought about it was when one of the volunteers suddenly asked for money for her work, even though she knew that all of us at the “Ukrainian Photo Diary” work on a volunteer basis. I felt used and betrayed.

But another situation—one that wasn’t directly related to the “Ukrainian Photo Diary” at all—proved much more difficult for me. In April 2024, a humanitarian organization was looking for a driver who could transport a minibus from Switzerland to Odesa as a gift for an orphanage. I volunteered to help and drove the vehicle to Odesa.

However, it later turned out that the necessary formalities for deregistering the vehicle in Switzerland and registering it in Ukraine had not been properly completed. The organization running the orphanage in Odesa had about a year to resolve these issues, but failed to do so.

When I returned to Ukraine in my own car about a year later, problems arose at the border related to the minibus I had previously delivered as a volunteer.

Since then, this situation has remained unresolved. My Ukrainian lawyer is working to resolve it. Due to potential legal consequences, I am currently unable to visit Ukraine again without risk. I very much hope that this issue will be finally resolved in the near future.

For me, it was a very unpleasant and disappointing experience. At that moment, I seriously considered shutting down the “Ukrainian Photo Diary” altogether. But then people who supported me and the project began writing to me, and it was those messages that gave me the strength to continue. 

If you could go back to the day before the project launched and meet yourself, what advice would you give yourself?

I would advise myself to be less naive. In a sense, I had been living in a safe world. As a reporter, I had traveled to crisis regions before and had some experience, but at the beginning, I should have prepared better and learned more about the country and its people. 

It took me quite a while to gradually begin to understand the Ukrainian mindset. The older generation in Ukraine grew up during the Soviet era, and that has shaped their worldview. Young people who grew up in an independent country and with the internet have a much more open-minded perspective. This was evident in their street protests against planned changes to anti-corruption legislation, and this past summer—in support of the dismissed Minister of Defense, Mykhailo Fedorov.

At first, I only communicated with people I found online, and I never verified those contacts. Perhaps I should have done so to avoid personal conflicts, for which I was completely unprepared. 

What do you think the project needs right now? Perhaps technical support, funding, or media attention?

Right now, I have very valuable, competent, and reliable support from my coordinator and assistant, Natalia Mykhailenko, in Odesa. I’m in daily contact with her, so I always know how the situation in Ukraine is developing and what’s happening on the ground.

Until now, I have personally covered all expenses related to this project. All donations we receive during our traveling exhibitions are 100 percent passed on to the civilian population of Ukraine affected by the war.

I would like to see more photographers join the project and for us to receive more photos from individuals, schools, and children. To that end, we’ve also created a special page on our website.

And, of course, I would very much like to be allowed to enter Ukraine again in the future.

Do you have any desire or plans to create similar archives for other countries experiencing military conflicts?

I already have experience working on a similar international photography project. Over 25 years ago, I founded LATINPHOTO.org—a project that still exists today. It supports photographers in Latin American countries and provides them with a platform to showcase their work.

However, our activities aren’t limited to photography. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we also provided humanitarian aid. In various Latin American countries, we organized food packages and distributed them to people in urgent need of support. Our photographers on the ground organized and carried out these humanitarian efforts themselves.

In principle, I can certainly imagine creating similar photo archives or projects in other countries that have been affected by war or other crises. However, right now, LATINPHOTO and, above all, the “Ukrainian Photo Diary” take up so much of my time and energy that I wouldn’t be able to launch another project with the diligence and responsibility it would require.

What life value is most important to you, and how does it manifest itself in your work with the archive?

For me, peace and humanity are among the most important values of all. The war in Ukraine came as a complete surprise to me. I never thought that such a war would be possible again in Europe in our time. I grew up in Switzerland. That’s why peace, neutrality, and the coexistence of people of different backgrounds and beliefs seemed almost self-evident to me for a long time. My trips to Ukraine and my work on the “Ukrainian Photo Diary” changed my perspective on this. I realized that peace and freedom are by no means guaranteed.

I see my mission as documenting and helping the civilian population—especially children, the elderly, and anyone who has found themselves in a difficult situation because of the war. So humanity is the most important value to me. It means seeing the individual and not forgetting what war means for their life.

How do you cope emotionally when you see thousands of photos and stories about the war?

It’s not always easy. There are photos that stick in your memory and are impossible to simply forget. When you’ve seen thousands of photos over the years and know the stories behind them, it can certainly become a serious emotional burden.

But there’s another side to it. There are some people I see again and again in the photos. For example, at rallies in support of the captured Azovstal defenders or during the regular nationwide moments of silence at 9 a.m. Although I’ve never met many of these people in person, over time I sometimes get the feeling that I already know them. Individual photos turn into stories, and behind those stories are real people and their fates.

Fortunately, we also receive photos that showcase the beauty and life in Ukraine: people, landscapes, culture, or, for example, the incredible sunrises and sunsets in Odesa. For me, these photos are just as important a part of the archive. After all, if we want to document Ukraine, we shouldn’t portray it solely as a country at war. We also want to preserve for the future a record of how the country and its people live despite the war.

How do European viewers react to the project’s exhibitions?

All Ukrainians who come to our exhibition are well aware of the situation in their country. However, some of them start crying as soon as they see the first photographs. Some can only look at a few photos before leaving the exhibition because they can’t emotionally handle what they’ve seen.

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A letter from an exhibition visitor. SOURCE: “Ukrainian Photo Diary” project

Among the visitors, most of whom come from Switzerland, the reaction is somewhat different. They learn about the war mainly from the media. There, the coverage mostly focuses on combat operations, the front lines, and military events. In contrast, they rarely show how people live far from the front lines and how the war affects their personal lives.

Many of these visitors are deeply moved after viewing the exhibition. Some tell us that thanks to the exhibition, they’ve gained a completely different perspective on the situation of the Ukrainian people. And that is precisely one of the most important goals of our project.

How has your personal understanding of what “home” and “safety” mean changed after working with the stories of Ukrainians?

Since I’ve visited Ukraine several times during the war, my understanding of safety has changed. I’ve personally experienced attacks, was forced to seek shelter in bomb shelters, and photographed numerous destroyed buildings. When you experience such situations firsthand, the concept of safety takes on a completely different meaning. You begin to realize how quickly you can lose what once seemed like a given.

Since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the West has also come to realize what this means. Its consequences are being felt here as well. Military spending has risen significantly in many European countries, and issues of national defense are now discussed in a completely different way than they were just a few years ago.

The war could spread and one day directly affect other European countries. Such scenarios are already being seriously discussed today. People have realized that peace and security are by no means guaranteed.

In such circumstances, what does “finding meaning in life” mean to you?

I think that’s a very difficult question. For me, the meaning of life lies first and foremost in people living together—without hatred, without envy, with mutual respect and a respectful attitude toward one another. We must realize how important it is for children to grow up in safety and care, and for the elderly to live a dignified life. And those who are in the active phase of their lives bear a special responsibility for this.

“Having a purpose in life” also means, for me, protecting those who are in danger and cannot protect themselves. And this applies not only to people. Animals also fall victim to war. They lose their homes, suffer injuries, are abandoned, or perish.

I believe that one of the guiding principles in life during wartime is the ability to take responsibility not only for oneself but also for other living beings. 

 

Юлія Калабайда