Imperial War Museum North’s new photo exhibition highlights human cost of war in Ukraine

A new photo exhibition is opening at the Imperial War Museum North this week that covers some of the pivotal and tragic moments in Ukraine’s recent history – through revolution, war and full-scale invasion.

Photographs From The Frontline is a collection of 17 photographs by internationally renowned photojournalist Anastasia Taylor-Lind, who has spent the last eight years covering Ukraine. Her work focuses on the human side of conflict and offers an intimate view into the lives of ordinary Ukrainians as they deal with the devastating consequences of living next door to Russia.

The photographs cover three distinct events in Ukraine’s recent history, starting with the bloody 2014 Euromaidan Revolution, which led to the ousting of the country’s former president Viktor Yanukovych, and onto the war in Donbas that followed the same year. Finally, the exhibition features images taken during the past eight months of Russia’s brutal, all-out invasion of Ukraine.

Describing her most recent reporting trip to Ukraine, Anastasia said: “Shocking sounds like too soft a word.

“This level of violence, metered out at this speed by the Russian invasion, is just something that’s really difficult for me to comprehend – and I’ve spent most of the last seven months in the country.”

Anastasia has previously worked in other conflict zones, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh,

She said: “Sometimes I wonder: ‘Why am I shocked?’ I know that people can do this to each other. I have been a photographer and I’ve worked in conflict spaces for 18 years. Why am I surprised?

“This is also human nature.”

Anastasia never intended on dedicating so much of her career to Ukraine. She arrived in Ukraine to cover an unrelated story in Donetsk in 2014. But while waiting for paperwork in Kyiv, she started to photograph the unfolding protests in the city’s central Independence Square, where thousands had gathered to stand against the government’s anti-Europe and pro-Russian policies.

“I started photographing in Maidan (Independence Square) and didn’t leave until Yanukovych was overthrown by the revolution,” she said.

The British-Swedish photographer set up an improvised studio within the barricades and took around 500 portraits over the course of the protests – some of which feature in the new exhibition.

Over the years, she has returned to Ukraine many times, working with her reporting partner Alisa Sopova, a Ukrainian journalist from Donetsk, whose words are also an important part of the exhibition.

Her time in Ukraine has left her with a deep emotional connection to Ukraine and her subjects. She has followed their lives as both friend and photographer throughout.

One of them is Yevhen, who signed up to fight against Russia when the invasion started. He has two portraits in the new exhibition: one taken recently in Kyiv, wearing his military fatigues, and another, taken eight years ago when he participated in the Euromaidan Revolution. Another is Lena from Opytne, a frontline village in Donetsk. Her photo in the exhibition shows her recovering in a hospital bed, having just had shrapnel removed from her back.

With this exhibition, Anastasia hopes to keep people talking about Ukraine and its people, who are still living with constant threat of escalation.

Just this week, central Kyiv was attacked for the first time, killing six and injuring 51. The targets were parks and cultural centres.

She said: “I just hope it can be part of a creative attempt, not just by me, but by journalists and artists and people all over the world, to have the people who come and see the pictures to hold Ukraine in their thoughts and hearts a little bit.

“We put a lot of expectations on photographs. They can be very powerful. I know the reality because I was there when I made them, but it was very hard to represent that experience in a 2D sense, but if they just spark some thought and feeling for people in Ukraine and what’s happening right now.

“We’re in a museum space (at IWM) and these pictures, I believe, in some way represent a historical document of a specific time, but they’re also news pictures. They were just made a few months ago and nothing’s changed for the people, like Lena.”

• Photographs from the Frontline by Anastasia Taylor-Lind will be at the Imperial War Museum North at Salford Quays from 14 October to 2 January. Entry is free. More information can be found on the museum website.