War of inscriptions

The city of Kharkiv situated between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian oriented territories, differs from other cities in that both positions are visible on the walls of the city with equal intensity. Inscriptions in defence of ukrainian integrity, calls for separatism, support for the self proclaimed republics – these statements criss-cross and overlap, some disappearing while others appear. The statements of both sides of the conflict overlap and contradict each other, while the message deforms and becomes lost. This is the war of inscriptions. 

We observed this phenomenon for a long time, analyzing it. This war of inscriptions for the most part takes place away from the city centre, on the city’s periphery or so-called factory outskirts. They appear more regularly during the revolution and intense periods of the war and less frequently during calmer periods. As for the message of the majority of the inscriptions echo popular topics from mainstream and social media. And it raising questions regarding their meaningfulness. So we decided to join the public conversation about the war using words about it’s consequences in the other dimension - the private. 

This is the words of a mother, who lost her son at war - intimate emotional experiences that are radically dierent from previous ones. They are out of place for the public space, they are from the private and their emotional expressiveness provokes another way of understanding the war of inscriptions, like the war as a whole.