Ukrainian Warchive: Collecting Stories of War

March 14, 2024
13:00–14:15PM EDT
Photo by Julia Kochetova

It has been two years since the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and reporting the ongoing war while preserving that visual documentation is a historical necessity.

The Ukrainian Photo Archive of War (Ukrainian Warchive) collects and safeguards visual material about the war. They also support Ukrainian photographers documenting the events in their homeland.

Since 2021, Ukrainian Warchive has awarded 28 microgrants to Ukrainian photographers capturing life amidst the war. The projects of ten of these photographers have been now featured in Ukrainian Warchive’s first photobook, “13 Stories of War.”

In this event, Dr. David Campbell will host a conversation with two recipients of Ukrainian Warchive’s microgrants: Julia Kochetova and Sergii Polezhaka. They will be joined by Emine Ziyatdinova, the co-founder of Ukrainian Warchive and the editor of the “13 Stories of War” photobook.

Photo by Sergii Polezhaka
Photo by Sergii Polezhaka

Participants

David Campbell is the Director of VII Insider and the Education Director at The VII Foundation. David is an internationally-experienced, globally-minded communications, media and politics professional with a uniquely varied history of strategy, management, analysis and writing within government, academia, and non-government organizations (NGOs).
Emine Ziyatdinova is a Crimean Tatar documentary photographer and co-founder of Ukrainian Warchive, digital photo archive of the Russo-Ukrainian war. After having worked in documentary photography and journalism from 2012-2017 in Ukraine, she relocated to the UK, where she has been working in the non-profit sector, as Eurasia program officer at Rory Peck Trust and a media consultant with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Julia Kochetova is a Ukrainian photojournalist and documentary filmmaker based in Kyiv. In her work, Kochetova has covered significant events such as the Maidan revolution (2013-2014), the annexation of Crimea (2014), and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. She is a regular contributor to publications such as Der Spiegel, Vice News, Zeit, Bloomberg, The Guardian, among others.
Sergii Polezhaka is a Ukrainian director, producer, and documentary photographer. He has years of experience in immersive 360/VR storytelling, having worked on projects for media outlets such as RFE/RL and The New York Times, as well as NGOs including UNICEF, GIZ, and WWF. In 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he returned to his field of study in journalism. He now primarily collaborates with media from the Axel Springer group.