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Jan. 17, 2025, 7:08 p.m.

K.RAY Project: Healing Through Keys and War Stories in Ukraine

Цей матеріал також доступний українською

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Andriy Bohun. Photo provided by the source

Andriy Bohun. Photo provided by the source

Keys to a "past" life or stories about a destroyed house, a destroyed library, a dog killed by shelling, a car used to leave the occupation, an abandoned mailbox or a desk drawer. Andriy Bohun, an artist from Kherson region, decided to collect such stories from Ukrainians whose lives were changed by the full-scale war and unite them through the image of keys. Intent learned more about the social and cultural initiative "K.RAY - Keys to Paradise" from the author and curator of the idea.

The war divided life into "before" and "after"

Andrii Bohun, Honored Master of Folk Art of Ukraine, was born and spent most of his life in the Velyko Oleksandrivska community of Kherson region. Here he started a family, worked, and created. After the Russian military captured the village, he and his family were forced to leave everything behind and move to Kryvyi Rih, where he stayed as an IDP for some time. When it became safer in the right-bank part of Kherson region after the liberation, he returned home. That's when he noticed how differently the events of a full-scale war affected people. Everyone had different losses and experiences.

"Communicating simultaneously with those who remained under occupation, those who evacuated to the government-controlled territory of Ukraine, and those who went abroad, I realized that there is a certain lack of understanding of other people's grief, pain, and sadness. I wanted to do something about it and help. This motivated me to create a project that would motivate and inspire some people to speak and others to listen," says Andrii.

In order for the initiative to be literally seen, it had to have visual support. According to the author's idea, a photograph of a key became a symbol of the lost and past, pre-war life. Hence the name of the project "K.RAY - Keys to Paradise".


A theatrical reading. Photo provided by the interviewee

"The key is a kind of artifact, a symbol that we use to lock the place where we feel good and where we don't want to let anyone else in," explains Andriy Bohun.

Andrii began collecting photos of the keys and people's stories in May 2024. At first, he did it directly in the Velyko Oleksandrivska community, looking for heroes on his own. But in a few months, the curator began receiving messages requesting to join the initiative from all over the Kherson region - the de-occupied right bank and the temporarily occupied left bank. Currently, the geography of the initiative covers other parts of the country, including Donetsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Kyiv regions. Ukrainian refugees abroad also supported the project.

"A person sends a photo. Then, if they are ready, we record their story. We often hear refusals from participants, and the reasons are about the same. Many people find it difficult to remember what they went through, let alone share it. They have literally buried their experiences inside themselves and don't want to go back to it. That's why there is another goal of the project - therapeutic. Because when a person starts talking and you listen, cry with them, empathize with them, they feel better psychologically. And after our meetings, people even thank us," says Andriy Bohun.

Each key has its own memory

There are two ways to join the initiative. The first is to talk to the curator in person or by phone on the record. The second is to write and send your story by text. According to Andriy Bohun, they try to keep all the stories as original as possible, so they do not have a single format. The topics of the stories are different, and despite the image of a key, it is not always about real estate as a loss.


Keys from the project's collection. Photo provided by the interviewee

"One woman wrote that she had lost nothing, except for her son-in-law. But this is not a value. The war broke out, his daughter and her children went to Germany, and he left them there. She is doing well. She added this message to a photo of the key to the house where the family lived," Andrii gives an example.

He adds that sometimes people add just a few sentences to a photo description: simple but emotional. At the same time, there are stories that don't fit on four or five pages of a text document.

One of them is the story of a grandmother about the key to a yard in one of the settlements of Kherson region, which was on the front line for several months. The heroine's house and household were destroyed, and she lived in the basement for several months until the Ukrainian military managed to evacuate her. In addition, the death of her beloved dog due to artillery shelling was a great loss for her. It is symbolic that the dog's name was "Klyuchik". And even when she was safe, the grandmother was worried not about rebuilding what had been destroyed, but about the animals that remained in the village, injured or abandoned.


Keys from the project's collection. Photo provided by the interviewee

Another story about keys that will never unlock the desk drawer where a person kept personal diaries and photo albums. As a result of a Russian air strike that directly hit the entrance of a high-rise building, this family's apartment was destroyed. "The house was divided into two parts. This was our entrance. That's why our apartment is hanging in the air... The front door, which I really want to enter... But it just hangs in the air. There is no hall, no bedroom, no corridor. The kitchen is hanging and there is no way to get there because there are no stairs..." the post reads.

In general, the meanings embedded in the text are different, as are the keys that denote them. Large or small, all-metal or with plastic handles, ancient or modern, alone or in a bunch. Each of them unlocks or unlocks only one memorable thing for a participant of the initiative.


Keys from the project's collection. Photo provided by the interviewee

"There is a photo from a Kherson resident who looks after many apartments of friends and acquaintances. Somewhere a window needs to be boarded up, somewhere flowers need to be watered, somewhere a pipe needs to be repaired, somewhere things need to be collected and mailed. Partly because of this responsibility, the man does not leave the city.

Another story of a Kherson resident concerns completely different feelings - faith and hope in returning home. In this photo, the key is not to the apartment itself, but to a mailbox. Looking at it, a person recalls pleasant and unpleasant moments: utility bills, election campaigning, newspaper subscriptions, letters from his beloved," says Andriy Bohun.

The author of the idea notes that the key is the starting point from which the hero begins to dive into his memories. The narrator begins to tell not only the chronology of events, but also introspects, in particular, his inner state, how the war changed him, what he expects from life in the future. Some people cry, some laugh, some do it calmly... Sometimes the conversation turns from the phrase "Oh, what's wrong with me... Like everyone else..." into a story of terrible things. But, without exception, they do not leave what they hear aside.

The project needs support

All the stories and photos collected so far are posted on the K.RAY - Keys to Paradise project page on Facebook. For security and moral reasons, this is done anonymously. For this purpose, people's names, names of settlements, and other recognizable details are removed or changed.

In October of this year, the first theatrical reading of 12 documentary stories was held in Kryvyi Rih. However, many more were heard, as everyone present could also participate and choose a story to recite. Andriy Bohun says this about it: "There was a microphone on the stage and texts lying around. Anyone could take a sheet and read it in front of everyone. This format allows us to feel the depth of the tragedy and the strength of the spirit of the people who survived it."

The event was charitable. Half of the money collected for the tickets was donated to the Shelter Plus cultural and community center, and the other half to the Velyko Oleksandrivskyi House, which suffered during the occupation.


A theatrical reading. Photo provided by the interlocutor

"The project needs support for expansion and dissemination. For example, from the archive of stories we want to make a theater almanac or a series of one-man shows in the genre of Verbatim. As for the photo archive, we want to create banners from it. These will be mosaic images: a thousand small photos will form one large picture. This initiative also includes another project, The House of Abandoned Keys. In fact, we have a lot of plans, while the period of accumulation and search for resources for implementation continues," Andrii does not hide it.

According to the artist, the initiative has no time limits. The full-scale war is not over yet, and the loss of life continues. At the same time, the stage of post-traumatic syndrome can last for several years, which is why many Ukrainians are only now ready to talk about the events surrounding the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

"What we have now is not even one percent of what is happening. I understand that not everyone can cross the internal barrier and share the emotions they keep inside. And I realize that I need to wait patiently. And also, to do everything possible so that when someone has a desire to speak out, they know about the project and where they can do it. Each story is unique and has the right to be heard as much as possible. Only then will there be a general realization that people are not alone in their experiences," emphasizes Andriy Bohun.

Ігор Льов

Яніна Надточа

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