UPPER EAST SIDE, Manhattan (PIX11) — As Russia’s war in Ukraine drags into a second year with no end in sight, Ukrainian New Yorkers are creating tributes to those lives lost on this first anniversary.
There is a mesmerizing new exhibit at the Ukrainian Institute of America.
Two Ukrainian-born ballroom dancers, Denys Drozdyuk and Antonina Skobina are still so worried and feeling so much pain for relatives and neighbors back home.
Antonina lost her much-loved grandfather in Mariupol.
“I lost my grandfather because he couldn’t get his medicine,” Antonina Skobina, a Ukrainian dancer, told PIX11 News. “My grandmother still lives in Mariupol under Russian occupation and my mother is now a refugee.”
“We want to show that the people who are fighting in the war are not only professional soldiers, they are also artists,” Denys Drozdyuk, a Ukrainian dancer, told PIX11 News.
Together, these two ballroom dancers have created an installation at the Ukrainian Institute of America.
It’s called “Lives Cut Short,” a print and video tribute to 30 fallen artists who lost their lives because of the war.
This conductor of the Kherson music theatre was shot dead in his home after refusing to cooperate with the Russian occupying forces.
This Ukrainian actor living in California returned to defend his homeland and died in battle and this 13-year-old ballroom dancer died on the street.
“He was killed by a missile strike at a bus stop in Karkiv,” Skobina told PIX11 News. “This is his father holding his lifeless hand. He was holding it for more than two hours.”
At the open house called The Unbreakable Spirit, commemorating one year of Ukraine’s Resilience and resistance, there is also a healing space of motanka sculptures, and ancient talismans by artist Ola Rondiak.
When PIX11 asked the head of the Ukrainian Institute of America what the last year taught us about Ukraine, Kathy Nalywajko, President of the Board of the Ukrainian Institute of America answered, “hopefully that the people are resilient and creative, and flexible. And that this is just not a war about Ukraine.
The exhibit is free and open to the public from noon to 6 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 24, at the Ukrainian Institute of America.
