FAMILIA
Russia-Ukraine, 2014-2026-ongoing

How do people love each other when they come from countries that have become enemies?
This war, like any other war, was never supposed to happen; these photographs should be kept in family albums, not published in newspapers.

The project depicts Russian-Ukrainian couples who have been photographed in various countries, including Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, and Germany, since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the following war in the Donbas region and Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Oksana Yushko, who was also born in a Russian-Ukrainian family, shares her personal history and that of many mixed couples. The project started with a photograph of Oksana’s parents, living in Kharkiv, Ukraine, a 30-minute drive from the Russian border. Such love stories were once common in countries shaped by the Soviet past, where borders were internal rather than international. The war has fractured these everyday bonds, casting neighbours as enemies. For Yushko’s parents who have been living together for more than sixty years, the war never came in the way of their relationship. The FAMILIA case is a portable installation addressing how the war in Ukraine affects lives of Russian-Ukrainian couples, showing both a tragedy and mass displacement of families, but also love stories and contradictory narratives, from a human perspective.

There are many different stories. Anna and Kirill’s love started during the war. Irina and Alexey left Russia back to Ukraine because of the war. Dasha and Andrey now live in Georgia. Polina and Vasily migrated to Argentina. The suitcase installation represents both a new life, but also consequences of the war, tragedies and sorrow along the migrants journey. Confronting the increasingly divided and antagonistic world in which we find ourselves today, the project shows a way to designate movement over or beyond boundaries, when love conquers all.