Like all of us, I am horrified and angered by Russia's unwarranted, unprovoked, and illegally invasive assault on the  people of Ukraine. Through my peers and friends in Kharkiv's and Kyiv's professional art community, I continue to receive first-person accounts conveying the terror exacted on them, their families, and their communities. 

When troops amassed along the northern border, I began to contact my colleagues and friends. When that border was crossed, I immersed myself into solving myriad problems my Ukrainian peers began to face– working on both long and short term solutions to help solve basic or complicated needs. I set up cloud-based servers so colleagues could archive their photographs and fieldwork– some still carry cameras and others carry weapons. I sent money directly or words of encouragement. I teach the history of Propaganda and Ukrainian-American relations to my students. I am selling Ukrainian Artwork. Bill Davis Imaging has partnered with California's Direct Relief. We all desperately want to help, but the collapse of normalcy in a once very vibrant, self-actualized, and robust culture is making that less attainable. In the early hours of the invasion Ukrainian friends texted me of very distressing compromise– trapped amidst chaos in a frantic distress echoing the crimes committed against their ancestors. 

I am tirelessly seeking ways to support my colleagues and the brave Ukrainian citizens. Selling prints from my website is one way I can provide direct cash assistance. I hope you find ways to help too.  First, my wife and I have contributed $250. I chose Direct Relief because they were founded by a war refugee in the 1940’s, have a strong cooperative history of positively impacting Eastern Europe, and because they come so highly recommended and vetted by the gold standard of charity watchdog groups, Charity Navigator.  Please consider making a contribution through Direct Relief's website.

Many of my Ukrainian friends have also sent me additional ways people can directly contribute to them. See below: 

https://www.andrewkravchenko.com/buyer-info

https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsionalniy-bank-vidkriv-spetsrahunok-dlya-zboru-koshtiv-na-potrebi-armiyi

Sleepless and consumed by text messages/images blitzing my phone and inbox, I am trying to help across time zones and oceans.

On 2 March 2022, I donated proceeds from my own labor to benefit my Ukrainian studio art peers in Kharkiv and Kyiv by directly sending money to my colleagues and friends– some who have photographed President Zelensky and other historically important figures. Ukrainians fight for their future because they are invaded by their past.

I exhibited in Kharkiv in 1999 as an invited cultural delegate for the city of Cincinnati with the mayor’s office– formally presenting work to American Ambassador Pifer. That led to an exchange with Ukrainian colleagues when I professionally hosted Kharkivite photographers in 2000 in the United States.  I returned to Ukraine to exhibit in 2008 for a solo exhibition, lead a masterclass, and lecture– then to exhibit again at Photo Kyiv in 2019 (an international photography festival). Ukraine was well on its way to achieving sovereignty and stability. Proof– representatives from the Louvre Museum and many other institutions were participating in 2019. That’s indicative of a nation in good standing. I met distinguished artists and publishers– reconnecting with old friends and making new ones.

The last time I saw my exhibition photographs was at Photo Kyiv on Lavra Street– placed into a car. I doubt to see them again. But I hope to see my friends and colleagues again. The historic district of Photo Kyiv 2019 is as much a fortress as cultural hub.

Artists must triple their efforts to gain half the normal distance that others usually achieve. Working and living in Eastern Europe can be like running a marathon in quicksand. That explains why my Ukrainian colleagues are so very resolute and strong. But they need help supressing the brutal weapons of war, occupation, and oppression.

My peers face violence, loss of statehood, separated families, humanitarian crises, outbreaks of Covid and paralytic polio, censorship, propaganda, and the potential future of a police state that would revoke freedom of speech, assembly, and expression.

Artists I know have temporarily exchanged cameras for weapons while others endeavor to telegraph or make art about their lived experience in real time. They fight and create for the future– ours and theirs.

Lives are at stake. You are one degree separated if not less than that.

Igor is embedded within walking distance to Kharkiv’s Freedom Square. Oleg reports from Kyiv. Juila wants to leave Poland for France but can’t leave her mom behind… Katya is separated from family– homeless in Poland. Ivan’s mom and grandmother were trapped in Kharkiv. Dmytro, who was photographing in Dnipro, has joined the army. Missiles fly over Olga's head. Others face their own mortality in Kyiv, Odessa, Lviv and elsewhere. They fight for more than sovereignty and self-determination. This tipping point will decide if the future repeats the past.

Hopelessness and fear were once— but should never again become– a way of life.

Putin, like others, has a Kremlin-centric way of saying, “It’s all your fault that I am attacking you. I am victimized by your dignity and sovereign free will. I am family. Your independence is an act of war on my nation. You have weaponized free will. Come closer and seek refuge in the country that bombed your family."

I know firsthand how these oppressive methods of intimidation work– detained, questioned, searched… too many personal and deflating episodes alone or with colleagues.

Putin will seek to demoralize, disenfranchise, and revoke statehood and civil dignity. Then he will normalize all of it.

There is nothing normal about violently blunting human will and expression. We do not want to witness Holodomor 2.0!

This is everybody’s war. No citizen or nation is perfect, but now is the time to embrace the spectrum of humanity.

If we can set aside judgement to focus on civility, then we can help course correct the history no one wants repeated. Please give!

You can make a difference. Visit links below or...  here to learn more: https://www.billdavisfotos.com/resources-to-support-ukraine