Feature

Ukraine: Through the cracks, light penetrates us

In war-scarred Ukraine, Lacroix’s photographs trace the faint light that slips through ruined buildings—a haunting metaphor for human presence fading but not yet gone.

Photographs and text by Yves Lacroix

From darkness, light emerges. Since February 2022, Ukraine has been facing a devastating war. The destroyed buildings are countless, scattered across the landscape, reminding us that chaos exists, that life has abandoned these devastated places, these structures torn apart by shells. Scenes of ruins, of gaping walls, of collapsed roofs, of furniture scattered on the ground, of lives also fractured. Families and people lived in or frequented these buildings where I go to install my lights.

Places of life, work, or leisure: These buildings are filled with stories, the stories of the events that took place there. “Through the cracks in us, light penetrates” sounds like a message of hope and life. The symbol that from the depths of an abyss, light can emerge, that darkness cannot destroy hope, that death cannot contain the spark of life. These ruins evoke our own vulnerability, they reflect our own lives, so fragile as well, our own tragedies. The light penetrates, finds its way, inexorably, just as life has done for millennia.

These buildings, like the Ukrainian people, these women and men, are damaged, broken, but remain standing, cracked but not collapsed. So it is not about celebrating destruction here, but rather renewal and better days ahead. Life stronger than destruction. Hope stronger than despair. Light stronger than darkness.

— Yves Lacroix