Ukrainian photographers of the Odessa festival find "refuge" in France

On April 28, 2022, the Odessa photography festival team announced on its Facebook page that it was forced to cancel its eighth edition due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “There will be no festival this year, but we continue to work with the Ukrainian and global photographic community,” the post announced at the time. Initially scheduled for May 19 to 22, 2022 in the Ukrainian port city, the festival has finally found refuge in several cities in France and elsewhere. A way to extend the mission of the festival born in 2015 in a context of the beginning of conflict accompanied by the explosion of "propaganda and media manipulation" explains the festival website.

Through the Stand with Ukraine operation, photographs by Ukrainian artists are presented throughout the summer in Aude, in Castelnaudary, Bram, Capendu and Carcassonne, where photos representing scenes of life before the conflict captured by Ukrainian Andriy Lomakin. In all, 25 Ukrainian artists will be exhibited in France thanks to the national Diagonal network. "The situation is unthinkable and we know many and many photographers engaged on the spot, resisting with their weapon which consists in making images and documenting reality", explains the network of 25 photographic centers in a press release.

In addition to the four exhibitions in the Aude, the operation is also taking place in Strasbourg as part of the Parle-leurs exhibition on battles, meteors and eggplant caviar, in the Hauts-de-France on the occasion of the Photaumnales festival in September, but also in Normandy and Nîmes. A way to financially support photographers who find themselves without income since the cessation of cultural activity in their country. Ukrainian photographers receive, in return for the exhibition of their works in France, income in the form of royalties.

In Paris, the Centquatre, which hosts the Festival of Young European Photography until May 29, has invited the Odesa Photo Days and added to its program their project Female Ukrainian Photographers as well as a screening which offers an overview of the Ukrainian series exhibited these last five years. “This screening aims to provide visibility to Ukrainian artists and to support the fight of Ukrainian women for their life and their identity”, explains the festival called Circulation(s) on its website.

Founded in 2015 in response to the tensions that are already emerging between Ukraine and Russia, the Odesa Photo Days festival is exported all over the world in reaction to its cancellation in its hometown. Friday, May 6, the photos of several Ukrainian photographers were exhibited in Toronto as well as those of their Estonian counterpart Dmitry Kotjuh, taken on the war front. From June 2 to 12, the Copenhagen Photography Festival will in turn feature two Odesa Photo Days exhibitions: Grandmother by Olena Morozova and the group exhibition The Thin Line.

The complete program of French exhibitions to discover on the Diagonal network website.