- winter garden
- free admission
You Shouldn’t Have To See This
/ installation
The artists intrude on the intimacy of the bedroom to bear witness to childhood interrupted by war and forced deportation. Since the start of the full-scale war, Russians have abducted from 200,000 to over 700,000 children from Ukraine. The girls and boys shown in the installation were among the fortunate few: they belong to a group of 1,943 children who have returned to their families.
We invite you to the opening, part of which will be a discussion. We want to give a voice to the youngest victims of the war in Ukraine, who are experiencing violence, separation from loved ones, and years of living among strangers. Even though thousands of children have been affected, their forced displacement from Ukraine to Russia remains one of the least visible and yet most long-lasting consequences of the war. Removal under the guise of evacuation, medical treatment or temporary care, isolation from families, and changes in language and historical narrative lead to systemic abuse of children’s rights and to attempts of transforming their identities.
“The silence allows us to see what usually slips away,” say Yarema Malashchuk and Roman Khimei the creators of the installation.
This is not a story with a happy ending. Returning home was only another stage in the children’s wartime experience, not the end of it.
The artists will come to Gdańsk and participate in the opening.
“Yarema Malashchuk and Roman Khimei are a Ukrainian artistic duo that has been active since 2013. They are based in Kiev and work with such forms as film, visual arts and installations,” says Volodymyr Polikhun, exhibitions specialist at the ECS. “Their work focuses on issues of memory, identity and the consequences of violence in the context of Ukraine’s recent history.”
The discussion will focus on the experiences of children deported from Ukraine: their daily lives outside their homeland, indoctrination mechanisms, and prospects for returning home. We will refer to examples of closed facilities and educational camps, including those in North Korea and Chechnya, where so-called re-education is based on isolation, militarisation, and ideological coercion.
Panelists:
Marcin Jędrysiak | Analyst, Centre for Eastern Studies, Department for Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova, Warsaw
Yarema Malashchuk and Roman Khimei | Creators of the installation You Shouldn’t Have To See This, Kyiv
Anhelina Kasianova | Child Return Specialist, Ukrainian Child Rights Network, Kyiv
Anastasiia Vorobiova | Human Rights Researcher and Analyst at the Institute of Legal Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznań
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) – signed by Russia as well – states, among other things, that every child has the right to a relationship with their parents and to preserve their identity, and that the illegal removal of children abroad must be prevented.
For children to sleep safely, adults must awaken.
The installation is curated at the ECS by Volodymyr Polikhun, Exhibitions Department.
Installation will be presented from 11 to 27 February 2026.
It premiered at the Venice Biennale (2024).