Victor Pinchuk Foundation together with the PinchukArtCentre presented Deciding Your Tomorrow project in Davos, on the occasion of WEF 2024

The exhibition includes a film by Ukrainian artist Oleksii Sai. Looking back at every single day of Ukraine’s defence since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Sai shows the clock ticking. An impressive moving visual diary of Ukrainians defending freedom, taking losses, and moving to victories. It shows how much was achieved, how much courage and heroism, but also how much suffering and danger have been present for all Ukrainians since February 24, 2022.  Oleksii Sai spoke in more detail about the idea and motivation behind the work: "At the beginning of the full-scale invasion I was approached by Björn Geldhof and the PinchukArtCentre team with the idea to make a video from photographs, because the material that photographers collect while risking their lives is impressive. At the same time, in my work, I tried to make sure that people who were less involved in our war could see the scale. This is something that passes by in the news or social media, where everything is dispersed, and I tried to group everything so that people could estimate the full picture as much as possible. My goal is to give people solid knowledge about the events in Ukraine not at the level of words or images, but at the level of feelings. To share what we feel."
Sai’s film is put as a juxtaposition to a curated live stream of TikTok content from Ukraine where people defiantly live their lives, finding joy, love, and moments of happiness while under constant threat. The exposition combined with an updated map and statistics of Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
Yarema Malashchuk and Roman Khimei presented moving portraits of Ukrainian children who were kidnapped by Russia and returned home safely. Bringing the world's attention to a systematic War Crime Russia commits in Ukraine. At the same time, this work is a homage to all children in Ukraine who live under the systematic risk of being taken from their homes.  The work, created in collaboration with Roman Khimei, was presented by Yarema Malashchuk: "We decided to film the children who were deported to Russia but managed to return to Ukraine in such a peaceful atmosphere, because what could be warmer and more peaceful than a child sleeping at home? But behind this so-called peaceful sleep is a completely different picture — the fate of children who were illegally taken to Russia, who have not yet been returned from deportation, or the fate of those who are under occupation. It is impossible to calculate exactly how many children have been taken away or how many remain in the occupied territories because the war is still ongoing. Currently, we are talking about numbers ranging from 20,000 to one million children illegally detained by Russia. This series of video portraits is made in the style of static shots. The children's dreams are real; we really came to their homes, and with the consent of their parents or guardians, we filmed a certain period of their sleep and synchronized the video so that at one moment, all the children woke up. This is an image of a dream that breaks off and turns into a reality where the war is still going on, where disaster is still happening, and the fate of children who have been deported or are under occupation has not yet been decided." The Deciding Your Tomorrow exhibition was open to the public from January 16 to 18, 2024 at the address: Promenade 59, Davos. Special gratitude to the Ukraine 5 AM Coalition and the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers for providing information on war crimes. The photos below are open for usage by mass media: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/juyhjmclj43k2z1u4nwgs/h?rlkey=vt98615ktotfhe29qb58so2qc&dl=0 When using photos, please, note the copyright information: Photographs provided by the VictorPinchukFoundation©2024. Photographed by Nicolas Lobet / Valentyna Rostovikova.