Re-framing My Body-2: The War Edition — stories of women and non-binary people at war
For the project Re-framing My Body-2: The War Edition, Ukrainian Armed Forces servicewomen, medics, volunteers, and journalists told what motivates them, what it means to be a woman or a non-binary person on the frontline, and how they deal with switching from civilian life to war and back. The stories of 12 heroix are collected in an online publication and illustrated with photos from their personal archives. Some of them have been at the front since the ATO (anti-terrorist operation 2014-2018, the combat actions in eastern Ukraine, later known as Joined Forces Operation), while others joined the fight after the full-scale invasion began on 24 February 2022.
Re-framing My Body–2: Countering Stereotyped Portrayal of Women is a project that was originally scheduled to take place between September 2021 and March 2022 online and in Kyiv, Ukraine. It was interrupted by the full-scale war started by Russia against Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
The project started off in the fall of 2021 with online lectures for women artists by Kateryna Radchenko, Hanna Wildow, and Sybrig Dokter. The participants reflected artistically on their experience of looking at and analyzing how women are portrayed in media and the arts. This material was used to create a video that is now available online.
Since it was impossible to continue the project as planned and run in-person workshops in Kyiv, organisers decided to direct their gaze to women and non-binary people who have chosen to put their lives at risk at or near the frontline.
Photo on poster is made by Iryna Rybakova.
The project is funded by the Creative Force program of the Swedish Institute and is a collaboration between Art Travel (Odesa Photo Days Festival) and Lava-Dansproduktion.
About the project
Re-framing my body is a joint project of the NGO “Art Travel” (Ukraine) and Lava-Dansproduktion (Sweden), aimed at addressing stereotypes about women in the media and culture. The project took place for the first time in 2020, and 10 Ukrainian women artists participated in it, working together with Swedish colleagues online and during a workshop in Kyiv. The second edition of Re-framing my body brought together 28 Ukrainian artists, but was not fully realized due to a full-scale invasion.