Echoes Of Resilience – An exhibition on the Ukraine War.

Early in 2024 Transform Mental Health CIC received a small grant from Nottinghamshire County Council for the development of an exhibition on the Ukraine War.

The exhibition opened in Nottingham in September, at the Institute of Mental Health in a gallery managed by The Nottinghamshire Health Care Trust and Transform Mental Health CIC are most grateful to the Trust who have given fantastic support.

Their venue seemed most fitting as no one escapes the mental scars of war.

Now we have this opportunity to bring the exhibition across the county to Newark.

The Nottingham County Council grant has enabled us to work with organisations and individuals all connected in some way to the war. Artists have been based both here and in the Ukraine. Some of the artists are refugees from the Ukraine living here to escape the war.

All the pieces have been carefully curated to reflect different aspects of the war from The Newark Friendship banner through to the haunting “Cold February 2020” painting by Yula Dukka, which was painted after she fled the Ukraine to the UK.

We also have a sculpture, poetry and paintings from artists who are based in the Ukraine. David Hunns has hosted Ukrainian people in his home in Derbyshire and wanted to give back to the community and so painted a stunning abstract.

We have worked closely with Ukrainian people and Ukrainian organisations who have helped us to raise awareness of the project and find the right pieces for the exhibition.

We have gained some fantastic volunteers from the Ukraine who have helped to develop the exhibition and make it the success it has been so far, and we are delighted to have the opportunity to bring the exhibition to the Spotlight Gallery at Newark Town Hall.

The theme of the exhibition will be further explored at Newark Town Hall on Saturday 16^th November at 11.30 am by Chris Lewis-Jones, Artist/Lecturer from Belper Derbyshire.

Chris has contributed drawings to the exhibition, based on the national flag which, he says, “reminded me of the vast, flat, fertile fields of wheat, waving, beneath blue skies.”

He will enliven his talk with a few songs, accompanied by his accordion.

The talk will be on the ‘Mackhnovschina movement’, which emerged in the Ukrainian War of Independence of 1917–1921. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the voices of the Makhnovshchina were again heard, as their flags fluttered over the streets of Kherson, Kharkiv, Odessa, Mariupol and Kyiv, inspiring Chris’s art to depict the harsh realities of Ukraine today.

For further information please contact the curator of the exhibition:
Deborah Hill  transformmentalhealth@gmail.com, mobile 07956 494207