July 20, 2025, 10:06 p.m.
(Photo: Kherson Regional Library for Children named after Dniprova Chaika)
Do we remember the civilians who died as a result of war crimes committed by the Russian Federation in the first, second, third and even fourth year of the full-scale war? How can we make sure that this is not forgotten on the one hand, and not an additional pain on the other?
The purpose of this study is to show the practices of memory in southern Ukraine. This is the third and final article, and it is dedicated to Kherson. Before that, we analyzed the peculiarities of memorialization in Odesa and Mykolaiv.
We will analyze the positions of the military administration, artists, and philosophers who are directly involved in memorialization. We will also analyze how local residents react to this topic.
The Kherson Regional Military Administration, as well as the Odesa City Council, responded to our request by saying that they had not received any initiatives to memorialize civilian victims.
Street inscriptions in Kherson. Photo: Intent
It should be borne in mind that the situation here is always more unstable than in Odesa. It seems to have stabilized after the de-occupation, but there is still a constant brutal shelling.
"The city is divided into relatively safe and generally dangerous zones. We are constantly hunted by drones," local taxi driver Oleh told us, "and it is impossible to hide from them. According to him, they fly so fast from the Left Bank that sirens do not help.
Street signs in Kherson. Photo: Intent
At the same time, by order of the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration of May 28, 2025, a working group was formed to develop and prepare the project "Place of Remembrance of Civilian Heroes of Kherson Region "Honor Everyone, Remember Everyone".
"The project aims to honor the heroism of the civilian national resistance of the Kherson region and preserve the memory of those who died as a result of Russian armed aggression, in particular during the period of occupation and repression," Volodymyr Kliutsevskyi, deputy head of the regional state administration, explained to us.
According to him, the working group will formulate the conceptual framework of the project, develop an implementation plan (including the creation of a physical space of memory and a digital archive), organize interagency cooperation, and summarize information on potential places, forms, and approaches to memorialization.
The working group included: artist, sculptor, wood carver Ihor Balykov, acting director of the Kherson Regional Museum of Local Lore Olha Honcharova, head of the Kherson City Center for German Culture Larysa Dvornikova, architect, expert in documenting the destruction of cultural heritage and cultural infrastructure, member of the Architectural and Urban Planning Council at the Kherson Regional State Administration Yelyzaveta Yevseyeva, and general director and artistic director of the Kherson Regional Academic Music and Drama Theater named after M. Kulish Oleksandr Kniazka.
At the first meeting of the group, they discussed the main approaches to creating a memorial space to honor civilians.
Photo: Kherson Regional Military Administration
"The focus is on preserving the memory of people who performed their civic duty, volunteered, saved others, spread the truth, resisted information or died for their pro-Ukrainian position," the Department of Humanitarian Policy Implementation of Kherson Regional State Administration said.
Photo: Kherson Regional Library
The Kherson Regional Library for Children named after the Dnipro Seagull joined the initiative of the authorities. They noted that they are currently searching for symbols and images that could form the basis of the future art object.
Photo: Kherson Regional Library for Children named after Dniprova Chaika
Thus, children were involved in this initiative and offered their own vision of the art object, which, in their opinion, should symbolize the feat and memory of the civilian heroes of Kherson region.
"The young artists demonstrated that memory can be cherished not only with words but also with drawings that speak of the most important things - humanity, dedication, and hope," the library said.
For example, Vira painted a monument to the fallen civilians in the form of an angel embracing a doctor.
Photo: Kherson Regional Library for Children named after Dniprova Chaika
When we asked whether it was appropriate to do this now, Oksana Dovhopolova, curator of the Past/Future/Art memory culture platform, PhD, professor of the Master's program in Memory Studies and Public History at the Kyiv School of Economics, said that it was time to collect all the preparatory information: "You can develop an idea, document it, record interviews, and then build a message. Because later there will be no place to get information from."
According to the artist Oleksandr Tanasiuk, who survived the occupation and left Kherson, the monument is needed, but not now, because the city is still very dangerous. "It's not time to build something there yet. Perhaps we need a virtual monument, a museum where documents about every crime of Russia will be drawn up. There are fewer and fewer people there and they don't care about monuments. But people will mature over time."
As an idea for the future, he suggested an object in the form of a bed with pieces of glass sticking out of it. "If you make it minimalist and have triangles sticking out, then it's an option. But I definitely wouldn't want it to be in the Stalinist style," says the artist.
Other artists living in the city are afraid to comment: "He'll come tomorrow," they say.
Street signs in Kherson. Photo: Intent
This is the right time to mention the project of street exhibitions "Afloat". In 2023, paintings by Kherson artists appeared in the windows of Kherson that had been damaged during Russian attacks as part of an initiative by the NGO Center for Cultural Development "Totem". So far, this idea has united more than 50 authors.
The author of the works: Volodymyr Reinhart. Photo: Intent
"These are not just posters with artists' works. We are constantly collecting and updating an archive of locations where these exhibitions can be located. The main condition is the interaction of the works with the environment. These are not just paintings that appear in the city. Each street exhibition is something personal that the author wants to say to their city here and now," the organizers say.
Series of works by Oleksandr Tanasiuk "Black & White"
Oleksandr Tanasiuk also provided works for this project from the Black & White series. One of them is about the flooding of the city during the explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station, when more than 30 civilians died. He says that it is about the eternal dichotomy of the struggle between evil and good, darkness and color, black and white, morally positive, and as an antagonist, morally negative and judgmental.
Photo: Oleksandr Tanasiuk's Facebook page
"I did not want to make absolutely depressing paintings that would illustrate the dark side of what is happening, because there is so much anxiety and negativity in the lives of Kherson residents. But even the bright moments - the liberation of Kherson and the de-occupation - are filled with sadness and tears of those who left during this period of war. But the white balances the black and gives hope," he says.
"The ship is sailing..." Photo: Facebook page of Oleksandr Tanasiuk
His work"The Ship is Sailing..." is also dedicated to the topic of war crimes committed by the Russian Federation. "In the south of Ukraine, there was a disaster caused by the explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant by Russian occupation forces. It is another example of the destruction of life by a civilization that has no moral limits or borders," Tanasiuk says.
Photo: Oleksandr Tanasiuk's Facebook page
In 2023, Oleksandr curated an exhibition of Kherson artists called Adaptation. In our conversation, he showed us works dedicated to the war crimes of the Russian Federation. They are now being read in Europe, but many of them were triggered in Odesa at the time and were not included in the exhibition.
The work of the artist with the pseudonym Kar Kar. Photo: Intent
Speaking of more recent events, in May 2025, Kherson artists organized the exhibition "(No) Time for Dreams" in Odesa in the bomb shelter of the Museum of Western and Eastern Art. Partly a project of the artist Valentyna Ivanova, it features works by children from Kherson who paint in bomb shelters.
Photo: Valentyna Ivanova's Facebook page
"Art is especially impressive when its medium is under threat," the artist told Intent. - "It becomes emotional, deep, and at the same time holds old meanings and creates new ones. At such moments, ordinary things that we did not attach artistic significance to before, acquire a tremendous power. Like these children's handprints made in a bomb shelter. Or the candle drawings on the ceiling of the basement where people were hiding during the occupation. This is not specially created art. But it becomes a testimony," she believes.
Valia says that she has come to a difficult, even scandalous conclusion for some: emigration is sometimes no less, and even more destructive than occupation.
Photo from the exhibition "(No) Time for Dreams". Facebook page of Valentyna Ivanova
"Because no crimes are committed here, there is no threat to physical survival. But identity is disappearing. Not immediately, not loudly, but steadily. And when children or teenagers create their works in forced emigration, or when I create mine here in Berlin, it is an act of remaining myself. This is the moment when I grab the moment while these teenagers are still Ukrainians more than the Germans they will become in a few years. This is my word, which I say as a Ukrainian. These are our children. These imperfect things, random things, funny naive works. The things that sometimes seem random are actually very powerful. They bring together old and new, memory and the present. And this is the culture of memory."
I would like the practices of memory in Kherson, Odesa, and Mykolaiv to be very different, to be thoroughly discussed in the communities, and to have their own therapeutic effects. There is a demand for trauma treatment, says Oksana Dovgopolova.
"But there is one thing: the government is solving these problems in a piecemeal way, and we lack specialized communities that specialize in memorialization, and as a result, distrust between the government and the community is growing.
The sculptors and artists we spoke to ask us not to rush into monuments. But it is necessary to collect information about them, insists Dovgopolova. "First of all, it's about tact and trying to avoid retraumatization.
You can shout in another way without violating the dignity of the dead people, was the conclusion reached by the participants of a recent intellectual discussion "How We Create a Language of Memory of the Russian-Ukrainian War."
It is interesting to note that the 2026 Venice Biennale will be held under the title In Minor Keys. Because it is through art that we experience empathy and collective healing.
This journalistic material was created within the framework of the project "Important Information for Local Communities in Ukraine", implemented by Fondation Hirondelle and IRMI with the support of Swiss Solidarity. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author.
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