Since the start of the current conflict, more than 20,500 Ukrainian children have been taken by Russia
It looks like a typical teenager’s bedroom: football shirts on the wall, crumpled clothes on the floor, exercise books open on the desk. But it is a work of political art, intended to evoke the empty rooms of more than 20,500 Ukrainian children unlawfully taken to Russia.
The work was on display on Monday at the headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels, as delegates from 63 countries and international organisations gathered to discuss how to bring Ukraine’s children home. “It’s essentially a way for someone to step into Ukraine without having to actually travel there,” Isaac Yeung, a co-creator of the installation, said.
Adding to the empty room’s unsettling vibe is a barely audible hum, punctuated by occasional explosions and the rattling wind. “It creates a tension in your head, in your chest,” said Leung, who works for Bird of Light Ukraine, the NGO behind the installation.
The room belongs to Artem, a 13-year-old character, whose story is a composite of real testimonies of children who cannot be named. With its heavy Soviet furnishings and early 2000s shiny wallpaper, the room is immediately recognisable to anyone who grew up in Ukraine, said co-creator and head of Bird of Light Ukraine Zhanna Galeyeva. Artem lived with his widowed single mother in Ukraine’s occupied territories, enduring months of shelling, until Russian soldiers told her to send him to a “health camp” in Crimea. It is a painful and grim reality for thousands of children and their families.
