Empowering Ukrainian Artists: Cultivating creative resilience in a psychologically supportive space

Art is the most powerful and universal language of all. It is the simplest thing an artist can do to encourage the people around her/him to understand, to hear and to act.

Last week USF Australia held a 5 day plenary, where artists from Dnipro, Zaporizhia, Kyiv and Lviv were given the opportunity to come together and create in a safe environment in the foothills of the beautiful Karpathian mountains.

It was important for them to share their experiences, their stories, problems, difficulties and their coping strategies with all the challenges they have faced in the past 19 months of war, as well as help one another and to recharge. They were painting during the day, creating artworks which were gifted to the USF for future fundraising activities. Every evening they would sit and talk for hours.

It was inspiring to see how bonded they all became and how healing it was for them just to sit all together and talk. People heal people.

We’d like to thank the Сreative Residence MC6 for their warm, attentive hospitality and looking forward to working together in the future!

Photo credits: @kudryk_photo