Through the cracks within us light penetrates.
From darkness comes light.
The barricades of Maidan constituted for Russia the sin of a rapprochement towards the West, the desire of a people to assert its sovereignty and independence. For an obscure and authoritarian state, this wish for openness and light had to be annihilated.
Since February 2022, Ukraine has been facing a devastating war throughout its territory.
The destroyed buildings are legion, they dot the landscape, reminding us that chaos exists, that life has abandoned these devastated places, these buildings torn apart by shells. Scenes of ruins, gutted walls, collapsed roofs, furniture scattered on the ground, lives also fractured.
Destruction fascinates us all, as does death. It also terrorizes us, sending us back to our own end like a memento mori.
If destruction fascinates me, it is not because of its morbid side, it is not really anxiety-provoking in my eyes; on the contrary, it reminds me that life inhabited these places before, it evokes a certain melancholy, a reminiscence of what life was like before in these places, certainly of what was and will probably no longer be, but also of what will be. Hope for renewal.
Families and people lived in or frequented these buildings. Places of life, work or leisure. These buildings are inhabited by stories, those of the events that took place there.
“Through the cracks within us light penetrates” sounds like a message of hope and life.
The symbol that from the heart of an abyss light can emerge, that darkness cannot destroy hope, that death cannot contain the spark of life.
These ruins remind us of our own vulnerability, they send us back to our own lives, also so fragile, to our own tragedies; they remind us that we are not permanent, however the light reminds us that in the face of our own disappearance, life continues and prevails whatever happens.
Light penetrates, finds its own path, inexorably just as life has done for millennia.
These buildings, like the Ukrainian people, these women and men, are damaged, broken, but remain standing, cracked but not collapsed. They symbolize the resilience of the Ukrainian people and the hope that inhabits an entire nation.
It is therefore not a question here of celebrating destruction but, on the contrary, renewal and better days.
Life stronger than destruction. Hope stronger than despair. Light stronger than darkness.
