“I would be a football player ...”, “I would be an entrepreneur and prepare family desserts”, “probably, I would have finished my thesis...”, “I would have moved to Turkey and worked in the archives, gathering information about Ukraine...”, “I would not know the types of military scopes...” Those are the dreams of volunteers related to the topic “If not for the war.” The dreams were collected by the activists of two projects – Ukrainian Military Portal and the Charity Auction of Dates for the ATO soldiers. Firstly, they determined the Top 13 of Ukraine’s most famous volunteers, who dedicated the past two years of their life to the needs of our army, by interviewing community leaders and the military. Then those 13 people were invited to “The Real” project and professionally photographed; the results of the photo-sessions are now on display in the Cosmopolit Shopping Center (and will be there for two weeks).
The essence of the project is to show the public that prior to the war the volunteers had another life and dreams, postponed for an indefinite time. What are those dreams? We see from the photos taken in two ways. The first series of photos depicts young men and women clad in military uniforms. And the second one shows them in the ordinary life, holding a cup of coffee in hand, or a book, or hugging a teddy bear; the little captions below the photo tell about the unfulfilled desires.
Leader of the National Project Davyd Arakhamiya (he entered the Top 13) believes that it is now time not only to talk about volunteers’ another life, but to look for a replacement to them. “There are signs of fatigue, and many people say they need someone to pass the baton along, but there is nobody behind them. Anyone can answer the call of their soul and become a volunteer to change something about themselves.”
Ksenia Pasichnyk, co-organizer of the exhibition said that “The Real” project will continue; after the country’s most outstanding volunteers it will show us the most courageous women on the frontline. We are waiting.
