Solomiya, No.2

Since October 2022, the editors Ivanna Kozachenko, Andrii Ushytskyi, Vsevolod Kazarin and Sebastian Wells as well as the art direction around Anne-Lene Proff and Peter Bünnagel from Kollektiv Scrollan and the Berlin-based publishing house SHIFT BOOKS have been working on a second issue of the magazine. The 132-page edition contains works by talented and already well-known Ukrainian artists from the fields of photography and graphics as well as texts on photography, film, contemporary art, literature and, above all, the everyday life of young people in Ukraine, which attempt to make the complex reality of life in the constant sights of the Russian aggressors comprehensible.

The new issue focuses in particular on the stories of people from the now-occupied territories in Luhansk, Donetsk and Crimea, who have already been facing the war since 2014. The cover of the new issue was designed exclusively for Soлomiya by the renowned artist Alevtina Kakhidze. It shows a woman surrounded by missiles and drones, raising her hand. “Our hands became more skilful during the war,” says Kakhidze, who has already created hundreds of drawings during the war and drew a tardigrade on the back cover of the magazine — the only creature to survive the Chernobyl nuclear accident.

»This magazine, created in Kyiv and designed in Berlin, is a testament to resistance through the means of art«, explain the editors.

Award in GOLD iin the category Editorial Design – Magazin of the ADC (Art Directors Club) Design Award 2024

Jury comment:

» … With multiple perspectives and the highest level of design, they make the reader understand what it means to have to live with the constant deadly threat. With their photographic observations, subjective image experiments, hand-drawn illustrations and sensitive texts, the makers offer unadulterated insights that allow us to share in their individual experiences.
The jury is more than impressed by the creative energy that stands up to this ongoing brutal war, which is slowly threatening to lose media interest. The attention caravan moves on. Solomiya stays.«