Sonya Atlantova and Oleksandr Klymenko
Icons on Ammo Boxes Painting Life on the Remnants of Russia’s War in Donbas, 2014–2021 Translated from the Ukrainian by Anastasya Knyazhytska
Ukrainian Voices Collected by Andreas Umland 50
Serhii Plokhii
51
Vakhtang Kipiani
52
Dmytro Shestakov
53
Larissa Babij
54
Julia Davis
The Man with the Poison Gun ISBN 978-3-8382-1789-5
Ukrainische Dissidenten unter der Sowjetmacht Im Kampf um Wahrheit und Freiheit ISBN 978-3-8382-1890-8
When Businesses Test Hypotheses A Four-Step Approach to Risk Management for Innovative Startups With a foreword by Anthony J. Tether ISBN 978-3-8382-1883-0
A Kind of Refugee The Story of an American Who Refused to Leave Ukraine With a foreword by Vladislav Davidzon ISBN 978-3-8382-1898-4
In Their Own Words How Russian Propagandists Reveal Putin’s Intentions ISBN 978-3-8382-1909-7
The book series “Ukrainian Voices” publishes English- and German-language monographs, edited volumes, document collections, and anthologies of articles authored and composed by Ukrainian politicians, intellectuals, activists, officials, researchers, and diplomats. The series’ aim is to introduce Western and other audiences to Ukrainian explorations, deliberations and interpretations of historic and current, domestic, and international affairs. The purpose of these books is to make nonUkrainian readers familiar with how some prominent Ukrainians approach, view and assess their country’s development and position in the world. The series was founded, and the volumes are collected by Andreas Umland, Dr. phil. (FU Berlin), Ph. D. (Cambridge), Associate Professor of Politics at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and an Analyst in the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.
Sonya Atlantova and Oleksandr Klymenko
Icons on Ammo Boxes Painting Life on the Remnants of Russia’s War in Donbas, 2014–2021 Translated from the Ukrainian by Anastasya Knyazhytska
Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. Dieses Buch wurde mit Unterstützung des Translate Ukraine Translation Program veröffentlicht. This book has been published with the support of the Translate Ukraine Translation Program.
ISBN-13: 978-3-8382-1892-2 © ibidem-Verlag, Stuttgart 2024 Originally published under the title: “Ікони на ящиках з-під набоїв” by Dukh i Litera Publishing House, Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2021. Alle Rechte vorbehalten Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Dies gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und elektronische Speicherformen sowie die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. Printed in the EU
Icons on Ammo Boxes National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Sonya Atlantova, Oleksandr Klymenko
Icons on Ammo Boxes This publication is dedicated to the “Icons on Ammo Boxes” artistic project completed by Sonia Atlantova and Oleksandr Klymenko. Icons painted on fragments of ammo boxes brought back from the frontlines are silent witnesses to the war in eastern Ukraine and, simultaneously, evidence of the victory of life over death (a real victory, not only a symbolic one). Since the spring of 2015, this project has supported a number of volunteer initiatives dedicated to helping soldiers and civilians who have suffered as a result of Russian aggression. Icons that were painted on both sides were popular in Eastern Christianity throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. They were intended to deliver a dual message. The same is true of the icons in this book. They are painted on ammo boxes collected from the Ukrainian frontlines. One side still bears the serial numbers of the ammunition the boxes contained, testifying to the war waged by Russia against Ukraine in 2014, and escalated in February of 2022. Most of the icons collected were created between 2014 and 2022, at a time when many people all over the world preferred to ignore the war. And yet it was going on, claiming the lives and health of thousands of Ukrainians. The other side of the boxes is covered with paintings in the style of ancient Eastern Christian art. The common feature of that style was the idea of transfiguration. Objects in icons look familiar but their portrayal gives them a transcendent quality, having been transfigured into something that exceeds our worldly experience. This side of the icons testifies to peace, which millions of Ukrainians desire more than anything else. These images demonstrate the transformative power of art. Ammo boxes, the tokens of war, are reused as holy images and tokens of peace. Icons do indeed do transfigure war into peace—at least for those who look at them with faith. Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun Director of the Huffington Ecumenical Institute in Los Angeles, CA. 7
The goals of Russia
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The goals of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine are still not clear after a year and a half of intense hostilities and many war crimes committed by Russian soldiers. When the famous Latin letters that symbolize this invasion are put together, you can easily recognize a slightly deformed Russian word for evil. The question of why Almighty God, who is the highest Good, allows the existence of evil in our world has occupied a very important place in philosophical and theological discussion, practically since the birth of the Christian system of thought. It is of particular relevance today for Ukrainians, as they are faced with an attack on their country that is morally indefensible and has no other purpose than the destruction of cities and the murder of people. Alvin Plantinga, a leading American Christian philosopher, gives several reasons for the existence of evil in the world. God cannot contradict his Nature. One should not expect literally everything from God. If God creates a being endowed with free will, we cannot expect that being to be completely immune from an evil choice that is contrary to the nature of its design. The moral value of the freedom of choice outweighs the cost of evil in the world. This explains why our world, created by a wholly good God, is constantly struggling against evil. People have the tools to distinguish good and evil in their daily lives. Plantinga calls these tools the intuitive axiomatic knowledge of God; for Kant, it is the categorical moral imperative. These factors make us react negatively to manifestations of evil in other people or suffer internally when we commit evil acts. In the first years of the Russo-Ukrainian war, an external observer might not have had a sense of moral certainty regarding the events taking place in Crimea and Donbas. However, the moral reactions of the people deeply immersed in the Eastern European context (journalists, lawyers, human rights activists and, of course, artists) leave no doubt as to which side of this armed conflict had the moral ground. The Russian invasion of February 24, 2022 stripped away all of the misinformation, tore off all the masks, and eliminated any possible nuances and shades in the interpretation of the events of this war.
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Icons on Ammo Boxes
One of the very first mature statements on this topic was the brilliant project of the Kyiv-based artists Oleksandr Klymenko and Sonya Atlantova titled “Icons on Ammo Boxes”. The project began its active presence in Ukrainian artistic life at the end of 2014. Since the beginning of 2015, it has extended into European, American, and Canadian spaces. More than a hundred personal exhibitions of Oleksandr and Sonya’s work have been organized around the world, academic articles have been written about the project, documentaries were made, its creators became the heroes of podcasts and news broadcasts. But the main thing is still the quality of their moral reaction to the war. Every weapon that fires requires ammo and projectiles. Transporting shells to the front line requires crates. The crates are long wooden boxes lined with iron strips. Shells explode on the horizon, shell casings litter the ground around the gun, crates are strewn across the field or piled up in the corner of a trench. They can be used to start a fire; they can be lined up on the walls of the dugout to keep them warm and less damp. You can make a table or a stool out of them. Crates are what’s left when the work—and in war, “work” is killing the enemy—is done. Piles of ammunition boxes are strewn across Ukrainian landscapes, especially in the east and the south of the country. They lie too far from the place of murder, they are not sufficiently implicated to be guilty, but they nevertheless testify to the violation of the main Christian commandment – “Thou shalt not kill”. Oleksandr and Sonya collect these boxes, split them apart into separate boards and paint their icons on them. The iconography of Oleksandr and Sonya is of an innovative nature. Theirs is not simply an image of Eternal Life, but a focus on the distance that separates us from it. Sonya and Oleksandr paint in the Byzantine tradition. The canonical function of an Orthodox icon—prayer—is completely preserved; however, a conceptual artistic effect emerges in the gap that separates an ordinary board, a piece of cardboard, a canvas and an ammo box. In churches and museum galleries, the icons that appear on the boxes are perceived in a completely different way.
The goals of Russia
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In churches, they are surrounded by the war and seen as emerging from the Ukrainian context—they express the hope of overcoming death, of a new life, not only of Eternal Life, but also of a peaceful life on Earth after the war. Images of saints appear behind translucent war imagery, and they are more powerful, more lasting than this war could ever be. In an art gallery (outside the Ukrainian context, under the secular spotlights), they are perceived as evidence of evil and a silent criticism of inaction. The background of the icons is different, not a standard blissful piece of the Divine, but a fragment of real life, soaked in smoke, crippled, tortured. The juxtaposition of this background and the easily recognized traditional images of saints brings the viewer into a state of moral confusion. The main goal of the Byzantine iconographic tradition has always been the preservation of continuity. In many ways, therefore, the images of saints in the Byzantine tradition are devoid of volume. Their bodies are transformed, deformed, they stop being important. The crucial point is to picture the soul—the receptacle of holiness. Painted on worn and charred boards, Byzantine icons absorb their stories and the horrors and suffering behind them, just as the moral value of free choice absorbs the evil that flows from it. Mykyta Grygorov Klebnikov Civil Society Fellow at the Columbia Global Center in Paris
Contemplating our own project It is interesting that the board on which a traditional icon is painted is extremely similar to the lid or the bottom of an ammo box—there is the same shield, made of boards and secured with crosspieces to avoid warping. This strange similarity prompted me to paint the first icon of the project. I first noticed the phenomenon of the boxes during a visit to one of the volunteer battalion bases in the autumn of 2014. After seeing a pile of empty AKM ammunition boxes, I asked the soldiers what they were doing with them. They told me that most were burned, but some were made into stools and shelves. The day after receiving one of the boxes as a gift from the soldiers, seeing its dark, slightly smoky wood, I began to paint an icon of the Mother of God on its bottom, slightly inspired by the classic old Byzantine look. The result not only satisfied, but impressed me, although I am usually extremely critical of my own art. The icon turned out not at all similar to pieces of modern religious art, the so-called “restruck coins”, nor even similar to what I had done before, and could be taken for an exhibit from the Benaki Museum or any other prestigious collection. The dark color of the smoky wood seemed to have cast the time of its creation back by several hundred or even a thousand years. Suddenly, the layers of time collided and a sensation of traveling in time arose. The modern war and the distant art of thousands of years ago came together, and this contact turned out to be unexpectedly organic. The balanced combination of an object of a modern war and an artistic language that dates back to the times of the Byzantine basileus and grand princes of Kyivan Rus prompted me to create an artistic project in which this principle would be worked out to the highest possible point and where the war in eastern Ukraine would appear in the context of the Ukrainian history of the past millennium. The organic synthesis of two opposites naturally led to another antinomy, the basic antinomy of our entire existence, the antinomy of life and death. In times of war, the tense struggle between life and death becomes more relevant than ever. In this way, the ammo box turned into a symbol of death, while the icon 15
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became a symbol of life, resurrection. It is important that the correlation between the two opposites be seen as a dynamic process, the transformation of one into other, and not in the usual transformation of life into death (what we see in Donbas every day), but, on the contrary, as the Eastern celebration of death turning into life, in the celebration of resurrection, the celebration of victory over destruction, chaos, hatred, and decay. Victory through love and self-sacrifice. This is why the support of a number of medical initiatives, aimed at helping military and civilian Ukrainians wounded in the war, turned out to be so organic in the framework of our project. These included, in particular, the Mykola Pyrohov First Voluntary Mobile Hospital, which entered into fruitful cooperation in the spring of 2015, the Wings of Victory foundation, the medical company of the 114th Territorial Defense Force Brigade, so forth The transformation of death into life became not only a symbolic artistic act, but also a reality. The transformation of death into life. The transformation of war into peace. It seems to be the dream of everyone who has faced the horror of war. The project, which I started in the autumn of 2014 with two other artists—Sofia Atlantova and Natalka Volobuyeva (who unfortunately left the project shortly after its presentation) – was born of our shared dream of peace in eastern Ukraine. The symbolic logic of peacemaking is, in my opinion, deeply rooted in the biblical tradition. However, peacemaking is an act of love, and arises from the firm adherence to and defense of one’s ideals, and not from a relativist worldview. Spinelessness does not aid in peacemaking, but only encourages the aggressor to take more steps. Peace for the sake of peace loses its meaning, because peace should not be an end in itself: it is only a tool, a path to something more, just a beginning, a first step. This understanding of peacemaking inspired me throughout the project. The Old Testament idea of beating weapons into plowshares is enriched by the New Testament theme of the exit from hell (the image of the Descent into Hell is the icon of the Resurrection) – the escape from the hell of war as well. However, the exit from hell can only occur as a victory over death, a victory through death. In the Christian tradition, the
Contemplating our own project
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cross became a symbol of this victory. A symbol of death paradoxically became a symbol of resurrection. It was in the nexus of this central paradigm that my idea unfolded ≈ in the autumn of 2014. That which carried death (in the literal sense) started to carry something else within itself, something associated with life in the Ukrainian tradition for hundreds of years, symbolizing life like nothing else—iconography. Visually, ammo boxes resemble coffins. Moreover, these boxes, like coffins, are usually hidden deep underground in military warehouses and arsenals. A war begins and coffin boxes appear in this Godly world, death bursts out of them, destroying everything in its path, almost like a Hollywood horror movie. However, artists get the last word in this process, and the shells of death, its “places of residence”, strangely start to radiate life. The essence of the box changes. The transformation mostly concerns the outer and the inner. The crosspieces are a peculiar aspect, the surface of the ammo box that, once changed into the icon’s backing, faces the wall and is hidden from the human gaze. Instead, the inner part of the box, hidden from people’s view for decades, becomes a kind of a metaphor for Theophany once an iconographic face appears on it. The process of creating the first series of works lasted from mid-autumn 2014 to the end of winter 2015, during the fierce battles for the Donetsk Airport (DA), in the tragic days of the Battle of Debaltseve. And it was from the DA (from the village of Pisky) that a significant number of boxes were taken for the making of the first icons. At this time, the basic principles of the concept (which previously existed at a more intuitive level) started to form. To a large extent, this was facilitated by my active contacts with those directly participating in the war. I was pleasantly surprised by the attitude of the military, the volunteer soldiers and aid workers to our project: their enthusiasm, their readiness to help, to bring the necessary boxes from the military front. I was not only surprised, but also deeply impressed, because even in the midst of fierce battles, under the constant threat of bullets, shells and mines, they did not forget about my needs. Sometimes someone would call from the frontline after collecting
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Icons on Ammo Boxes
a bunch of boxes to apologize that the ones I needed would not be brought: they had all been destroyed in artillery shelling. This is why, in my opinion, those who brought the ammo boxes from the frontline can be considered full-fledged participants of the project, co-authors in their own way. Finding, saving and bringing the box from the frontline is incredibly important for the project; it is, in my opinion, as much of a creative act as making the icon itself. One of the central metaphors of the project is the waste of war, the remnants that, at first glance, are not needed by anyone, as ammo boxes become garbage once disposed of after a battle or a war. At best, they are simply burned to keep people warm or to cook food. In a similar way, soldiers who went through war often become redundant in the country they defended. They grow estranged from the citizens who led a peaceful and full life in the rear. Boards, fragments, bits of boxes that were crippled by the war get a new life, become useful in a new way, turn into icons. Similarly, soldiers (all soldiers!) are needed by our country even after they get demobilized. Veterans should be given public love, respect and care, which they undoubtedly fully deserve. The war with Russia has brought us back to understanding war as a reality that is constantly present next to us and in our lives, as an everyday thing and at the same time a universal tragedy, as something from which we, unfortunately, can neither run away nor hide. There is comprehension of the totality of the war, which comes from understanding that war has an epic, universal side to it, and the confrontation in Donbas is only one episode of a longer tale. It is significant that the theme of war is pervasive in biblical theology as well. The war with sin, with Satan, the battle of good with evil, starting with the Pentateuch and ending with the Revelation of John on Patmos, is central. The Incarnation itself (the central event of Christian doctrine) is thought to be the culmination of this battle. Moreover, history (in particular, sacred history) is primarily the history of this struggle . . . The pieces of ammo boxes logically extend the tradition of understanding existence as a battle as they becomes the basis of an icon. However, this universal war is primarily a spiritual, invisible battle (recall the classic ascetic work “The Invisible Battle” by the Mount Athos monk Nicodemus the Hagiorite), where the main
Contemplating our own project
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weapons are not swords, arrows, automatic weapons, tanks and “grads”, but prayer and fasting, and victory in battle is victory over sin. It is interesting that the language of asceticism, especially among some authors, is incredibly militarized. If you removed a few key words, you would get the impression that the text was not written by an ascetic, but by the combat officer of an active unit. It is extremely important that the military theme acquire its symbolic meaning in this case, paradoxically transforming. The battle with evil turns into a man’s battle with his own imperfection. Only by defeating the evil within oneself can one hope for victory over the evil around them . . . And as a visual allegory, the symbol of this inner victory is Saint George, an armed knight on a horse. Religious radicalism does not fail to manifest itself in art. Usually associated with lower, marginal forms of mass culture, it invades the “holy of holies” of Christian art—iconography, subordinating the icons to its worldview and aesthetics. The icon, once a liturgical phenomenon, turns into something else, sometimes transforming its stylization, sometimes the traditional technique itself. Sometimes it just changes its surroundings, preserving the characteristics of a traditional Christian image. Entering into the unit of Chetniks or fighters of the “Russian Orthodox Army”, it acquired completely different meanings. Oftentimes, “radicalization” occurs due to a change of the material on which the icon is painted: instead of a linden board covered with levkas, the icon is painted on a weapon, on military equipment, on a fragment of an aircraft fabric covering, on the carriage of an old cannon, a tattoo on one’s skin. At first glance, icons painted on ammo boxes can be classified as art that serves Christian religious radicalism. We have encountered such interpretations of our work on several occasiona, which surprised us. After all, from the very beginning of the project, we tried to distance ourselves as much as possible from radicalism, making every effort to make our work definitely antithetical to it, basing it on the principles of Christian humanism and personalism. We contrasted cult-like isolation with our openness to the world and its problems. As part of our initial concept, it was also important for us to differentiate our creative activity from the artistic processes that led
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Icons on Ammo Boxes
to the creation of the Main Cathedral of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Full of neoimperial pathos, imbued with the cult of aggressive war and nationalism, this temple simultaneously impresses with its deliberate eclecticism. From the very beginning, the modesty, the restraint, and the ascetic modesty of our works had to contrast with the gigantism, the vulgar luxury, the excessive architecture that is natural to the Christian aesthetics of the political orthodoxy of the late Putin era. An icon is a space of dialogue. In fact, its main purpose is conversation, an encounter. The dialogic nature of the icon is based on biblical intuition, on our confidence in the possibility of dialogue between Creator and creature, between God and man, between the mortal and the immortal, between entities of different natures, between the earth and the sky. The icon is a confirmation of our need for this dialogue, its result and its tool. It is the apotheosis of confidence in the need for such a dialogue, in the possibility of any dialogue, the necessity of a face-to-face encounter. The icon only actualized after Kenosis, after God became man and began to speak not through the prophets, not from the skies to the earth, but face to face, as an equal to equals . . . Paradoxically, the political culture that is being formed in modern Ukraine is imbued with the pathos of dialogue. The Revolutions were, in addition to everything else, an attempt to establish a dialogue between civil society and the government, a unique dialogue, tragic in its tension, and, unfortunately, tragic in its consequences. And in this context, the icon itself can serve as both a symbol and a model of the newly created dialogic culture like nothing else. If what you see in the other person is not an object to manipulate, but an icon, the image of God, you will no longer be able to commit acts of violence against them, humiliate them, mutilate them, and kill them. Ideally, democracy is, of course, a space for dialogue. In my opinion, the dialogic nature of democracy differs from the monologic nature of totalitarianism, in which the government usually delivers an endless monologue to its silent listeners, the subordinate population. By and large, a totalitarian society does not need an icon as a tool for encounter and dialogue, but only as a tool for
Contemplating our own project
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self-consecration and sacralization. The government tries to make itself into an icon, but instead it always turns into an idol. The Russo-Ukrainian war is a conflict of two cultures, the inherently dialogic culture of Ukraine and the monologic culture of Putin’s Russia. In fact, this is their main difference between, the basic difference, the difference between New Testament dialogue and Old Testament monologue. The bloody war between Russia and Ukraine is not only a struggle for territory. It is also an existential war for survival, at least for Ukrainians who are being denied their own national identity. The battle for cultural heritage and historical memory became an integral part of this war, a battle for traditions that go back not only to the times of Kyivan Rus, but beyond them to the times of Byzantium, and even to antiquity. It is a struggle for the interpretation of this heritage, and the annexation of Crimea by Russia was also an attempt to annex Ukrainian antiquity, an attempt to separate Ukraine from this inheritance, which is important for our self-awareness as a nation. That is why the focus of our project on the Byzantine cultural tradition is, among other things, a confirmation of our roots in Mediterranean culture, a defense of our own vision of this tradition, a return through Byzantium to Hellas . . . For many inhabitants of our planet, the terrible war that is raging in Ukraine still appears as something not only distant, but existing in a virtual space. Even a rise in fuel or food prices cannot “devirtualize” it. The real presence of fragments of utilitarian ammo boxes, however artistically processed, presents an antithesis to this virtual war, an attempt to take viewerw (both in Ukraine and in Europe) out of the conventional space of online wars—comfortable, warm, and cozy—and put them in the world of real military events with all their horrors. One of the primary functions of the icon is to serve as a testimony to this war, a reminder of its real presence on the territory of modern Europe, about the existence of wars in general and about their real threat to humanity, to each of us, regardless of where you live—in Kyiv, Warsaw, New York, Mexico City, or Cape Town . . . Oleksandr Klymenko
What our project means personally to me What is the project “Icons on Ammo Boxes” to me? It is difficult to give a definite answer. I try to stitch together a single all-encompassing statement from a bunch of tiny aspects and multicolored scraps. But the bigger picture remains torn and breaks apart into little pieces. The beginning of the war now evokes a strange feeling. Although I don’t know if there was ever a time that people did not consider it strange. How simple and comfortable everything was fifty years ago! But now! But if you look carefully, you will find that then, and at all other times, everything seemed strange and crazy, and people looked back with a longing for simpler days. All of us were inspired and confused, scared and fearless at the same time. Many started feeling Ukrainian for the first time in their lives. On the streets, one could often hear typical conversations in Ukrainian with a strong Russian accent—Russian-speaking citizens switched to Ukrainian out of principle. When remembering these times, it is impossible to remain silent about the volunteers. But this is a difficult topic for me. Like stories about your first love, you try to be completely frank, but you inevitably feel that any words belittle what you are trying to say. Perhaps, at the time, there was a lot of childishness in volunteering. Isn’t it naive to think that you can influence serious concerns like the army and medicine with your own inept efforts? But it was this inspired childlike attitude that enabled us to accomplish the impossible. It was at that time that my husband brought home a board— the bottom of an ammo box for AKMs. Something familiar, almost precious, but distorted, as if reflected in a crooked mirror, peeked out of this board. Oleksandr was the first to notice that it had the same structure as the boards of icons. A strange combination, like a former aristocrat finding himself among ordinary construction workers. The same two crosspieces connecting the pieces of wood so they can last for a long time in storage. This is expected, because neither the icon nor the ammo box has the right to warp. But the icon 23
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board is smooth, neat and has a gentle smell of wood. Its wartime relative is only polished as much as it is necessary, with a roughly cut round keyhole on the inside, and its back bearing a black sign describing its scary contents. One sister is a princess, the other a beggar . . . The resemblance is truly striking, but Oleksandr went further. He decided to paint an icon on the ammo box. I’m afraid that I behaved like an ordinary wife when he shared his ambitions with me. The idea seemed crazy to me. However, my husband had already decided to paint it. A brusque and austere image of the Mother of God appeared on the rough, unprocessed board. And a transformation took place. The beggar-like board did not become a princess with pink nails and golden curls; instead, a wise and experienced queen was born. She can walk into a solemn ball, but can also descend into a dirty trench. I describe it with the help of children’s fairy-tale images; they always help me when real grown-up words are not enough. The painted icon appeared to be simultaneously both new and ancient, museum-like. The rough texture of the board emphasized the painting and was important in itself. It seemed that Oleksandr painted an icon on the body of existence itself, which is never really smooth. The symbolic transformation of death into life is the central idea of the project. It turns out that a life that has only been lived cannot be more of a life than one that has the experience of death behind it. Now, we have the most powerful tools to hide or edit all possible errors and irregularities at our service. Any image (in this case I do not mean icons, or at least not only icons) can be processed, retouched, made flawless. Pink faces, blue sky, a person who has achieved success . . . It seems that everything is fine, that the goal was accomplished, but something is lost, the meaning is lost, and the image disappears under a layer of retouching. If a professional make-up artist paints a beautiful face on an ugly woman, does she herself change at all? It would be possible to cover the ammo box with smooth mirror-like levkas, remove the unevenness beforehand, neatly paint its back . . . A transformation could still be seen in the process, and the result would be even better—a pretty, smooth icon. No one would have ever guessed that it was a former ammo box. But then the testimony loses its value. And the icons on ammo boxes are actually witnesses. They are an