As a result of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, more than 9.62 million war refugees—mostly women and children—have crossed the border into Poland. Since the liberation of some occupied areas, more than 7 million people have returned to Ukraine. The most significant quantity of people decided to legalize their stay in Warsaw (more than 100,000), but according to estimates, there are, in fact, twice as many Ukrainian citizens in the Polish capital. As the largest transit center in western Ukraine, Lviv has accepted hundreds of thousands of internal refugees, providing temporary shelter or serving as a stop on the way to Poland, Western Europe, and beyond. The authors of this publication carried out interviews on the Polish–Ukrainian border (Medyka, Krościenko, Korczowa) in Lviv and Warsaw. Here are the stories of those who left their homes and those thinking of returning or moving on, stories of survivors of war crimes in the XXI century in the heart of Europe.
The UAtlas project went beyond the cooperation framework based on the authority-contractor relationship. Invited by our friend, Rafał Milach, to create a website documenting the dramatic stories of people fleeing the war, we had to limit the means of expression to make the right background for the moving stories. Rafał was among the ones who, just a moment ago, were documenting these stories at the border, which is why the project was full of emotions and, in a way, it did itself. We divided the page structure into sections: a list of stories, information about the project, valuable links (showing the context of this activity), and a contact subpage. We used a loose interpretation of the colors of the Ukrainian flag set against a gray background.
+ Client
Rafał Milach / Magnum Photos
Rafał Milach / Magnum Photos
+ Scope
Web Design
+ Team
Filip Tofil (art direction)
Filip Tofil (art direction)
Urszula Tofil (coordination)
+ Year
2022
2022
+ Link
uatlas.org
uatlas.org
+ Documentation
photographs on the website thanks to participating artists:
photographs on the website thanks to participating artists:
Rafał Milach / Рафал Мілах, Jewhen Stepanec / Євген Степанець, Elena Subacz / Елена Субач, Karolina Gembara / Кароліна Ґембара, Mika Neczyporenko / Міка Нечипоренко, Ołena Tkaczenko / Олена Ткаченко, Agnieszka Rodowicz / Аґнєшка Родович
