Andrii Usach

Hundreds of thousands of people from those Ukrainian regions attacked by the Russian army have fled to Lviv, a city behind far away from the front lines of the war. Humanitarian and military aid from the West passes through the city. Numerous volunteer initiatives operate here. Despite the fact that military facilities around Lviv have been hit by missiles, the Western media call it a "quiet city." Is that really so? Are the signs of today's war visible in the urban space? What are the stories of those who found themselves here as a result of hostilities? We've started the project "24.02: Life after" to document the experiences of people whose lives have changed since the beginning of the total war. For them, Lviv has become a temporary refuge. We invite them to share their experiences since the outbreak of war, as well as their future plans. We also look forward to another meeting with everyone after the victory––to find out how their war stories ended and whether they proceeded as planned. Some moments from the stories are published in local media. 

The main phase of the project will be carried out at the After Silence public history space in Lviv which will open its gates to the public this autumn. One of its purposes is to provide a comfortable and safe space for meetings and interviews with internally displaced persons, focusing on family archives. If such archives are unavailable or non-existent at the time of the meeting, the goal is to document their verbal descriptions, personal and family narratives attached to them, and everyday archiving practices. Should it be possible to save these archives, we would like to document the owner’s interactions with such objects, contextualize them via comments about particular items (photos, letters and postcards, diaries, etc.) and digitize these. The intended result of the project is an array of video recordings and digitized objects which will be archived and stored as a separate collection of the After Silence archive, following initial transcription and cataloging. The first stage of the project will consist of 10 meetings and help kickstart a systematic workflow, with the prospect of using the data (with explicit consent from participants) in scientific publications, presentations, and exhibitions.