WARNING: This article contains sensitive topics. Those in need of support can contact the Mental Health Crisis Line: 613-722-6914 (within Ottawa) and 1-866-996-0991 (outside Ottawa), the Ottawa Distress Centre Crisis Line: 613-238-3311, or the Youth Services Bureau 24/7 Crisis Line: 613-260-2360 or 1-877-377-7775 (toll).
Cities, monuments, landscapes, parks and skylines in Ukraine have turned to rubble, ash and wreckage since Russia’s 2022 invasion. Students at Carleton University had the unique opportunity to experience the impacted cityscapes up close in a 360-degree virtual reality (VR) exhibition on Feb. 25.
Hosted by the Carleton Ukrainian Students’ Club (CUSC), the War Up Close Project depicts circular panoramas and drone videos of Ukrainian cities including Bucha, Kyiv, Irpin, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv before and after the invasion.
The experience begins by explaining to the viewer what is being shown, and then immersing them in 360-degree photos and videos of various cities, their locations, and what they looked like before the Russian invasion and after.
The visuals include destroyed apartment complexes, villages, children’s playgrounds, bridges and roads accompanied by imagery depicting what the communities looked like before the Russian invasion. The exhibition, which has toured educational institutions across Europe and North America, was at the SAW Gallery on Feb. 24 and at Carleton University’s Nideyinàn Galleria on Feb. 25.
Project co-founder Mykola Omelchenko was one of the first photojournalists to collect images of the destruction in Ukraine, entering dangerous territory to gather the visuals now featured in the exhibit. Omelchenko said he was inspired to create the project after seeing people react to photos of the war’s destruction online with skepticism.
“Their response was ‘it’s not as bad [as it looks], it’s just the right angle,’” Omelchenko said.
Omelchenko said that pushed him to drive across Ukraine with two friends, using their own equipment to collect footage of the destruction. When the project took off, the group was given funding from the Ukrainian government and non-governmental organizations to collect visuals in five different areas across Ukrainian cities and stretched it to cover 25.
“It was dangerous, because sometimes the missiles were flying overhead and landing not far away from us,” Omelchenko said.
Kathryn Morneau, a member of the Russian Embassy Protesters, a group that has protested Russia’s invasion outside the Russian Embassy in Ottawa since the war began, sought out the exhibit.
“I felt like I needed a debrief [after]. I felt very quiet inside,” Morneau said. “It was a very personal experience, very visceral.”
Morneau said putting on the headset made the war feel more real than images on the news.
“One of the first [images] I saw reminded me of Carleton, driving along Colonel By,” Morneau said. “It made me think that Ukraine is not so different from Ottawa or Ontario, more relatable in a sense … Almost like it could happen here.”
“You can see it on the news, but when you actually put on the glasses and you immerse yourself into the ruins that are now Ukrainian cities, and you see how it was before, I think it comes as a shock,” Gusieva said.
Omelchenko said the exhibit is meant to be an emotional experience.
“It really opens your eyes to understanding and gives you [a better] idea of what the consequences are,” he said.
Omelchenko said many people have cried after putting on the VR headsets.
“It’s the mid-generation, older generation, the ones who hurt more. They have learned more. The younger generation were in shock – they did not know that was their reality.”
Omelchenko recalled the first time he received a panoramic drone shot of a destroyed village in Ukraine.
“I was like, ‘Why did you send me a field?’ I looked closer at what’s down there, and I realized it used to be a village,” Omelchenko said. “I just saw a bit of rubble, and the rest of it was burnt down. And that’s what Russia brings: it brings death.”
Another time, Omelchenko and his crew encountered a 70-year-old man in a razed village who had lost his wife, children and grandchildren. He lived in the underground remains of his house.
“He learned what we do, [went] down to his basement, and [brought us] plums,” Omelchenko said. “He says ‘This is something for the road. Promise me you’ll tell the world the story.’”
Alongside the VR exhibit, CUSC presented artwork from the Sunflower Dreams Project, a volunteer-run artwork series by Ukrainian children who fled their cities to safer parts of the country.
Gusieva said the exhibit could help people connect with the emotions Ukrainian children are feeling living through war.
“Through their drawings, people are able to connect and see what it’s like for a 12-year-old to have so much pain and uncertainty in their life,” Gusieva said.
“Russia has been hurting Ukrainians for generations,” she said. “We’re talking hundreds of years of exploitation, oppression, erasure of cultural identity, banning the language, killing poets, killing artists, taking children: complete genocide.”
“They’re not only killing them,” Omelchenko said. “They’re killing the identity of being Ukrainian.”
The imagery used in the exhibit can be viewed online and is accessible through VR glasses.
Featured Image by Sophia Laporte/the Charlatan.
