Photography art

A Ukrainian photographer is using TikTok to turn war zone destruction into art

This is the scene that Ukrainian photographer Valeria Shashenok witnesses each individual day when she walks down the avenue in war-torn Chernihiv, Ukraine. Shashenok is taking shelter in an underground bunker with her mother, father and canine “Tory” in the northern Ukrainian city. Her shut mates have now fled.

But in its place of wallowing in the destruction close to her, Shashenok has turned the war into art.

Shashenok is applying TikTok to document her each day lifestyle. Her videos have gone viral, some acquiring thousands and thousands of views.

In the video that created her well known, Shashenok dances to “Che La Luna” with the caption, “My regular working day in a bomb shelter.” She employs a heat gun like a hairdryer as her dog hides under a blanket. Her mom cooks above a pot on the flooring.

In a further movie, Shashenok stands before a pile of rubble. The caption suggests, “Nowadays Putin destroyed a person of the aged developing(s) in my town. It was a cinema that survived Earth War II.” Then she reveals large windows close by, the glass shattered on the floor. “Home windows flew out from the pressure of impact in neighboring homes also.”

In but a further, she exhibits the bare cabinets of grocery a retail store with the caption: “If you want to invest in food stuff in a supermarket during the war in Ukraine.”

When requested by CNN’s Pamela Brown on Sunday why she started submitting these films on Tik Tok, Shashenok said, “I feel it really is like my mission to exhibit men and women how it appears in actual everyday living. That it can be genuine lifestyle, and I am right here.”

She continued, “Numerous Russian people produce me that we are with you. … In Russia, (there is) a ton of faux information. And most of the men and women do not believe that in my nation we have a war. … My mission (is) to clearly show (the) total earth that it’s come about(ing) now in actual existence, and you can see now (the) war (o)n Tik Tok.”

Tik Tok declared Sunday that it would suspend some attributes in Russia in gentle of the country’s new “faux information” legislation penalizing misinformation.
But even with increasing stardom, Shashenok is concerned about the fate of her region. “Each individual working day I dwell with a hope that tomorrow war will close, but every little thing is obtaining worse.” Shashenok wrote to CNN’s In the meantime in The usa on Sunday. On Monday, she wrote to CNN, “Everybody is afraid (for) their existence.”

In modern days, hopes for opening up safe and sound evacuation corridors for civilians out of a range of cities, together with Chernihiv, have been frequently dashed, with Ukraine accusing Russia of attacking escape routes.

Like many people today in Ukraine, Shashenok’s spouse and children is hesitant to depart as proof grows of Russian violence versus Ukrainian civilians. Asked by CNN on Monday irrespective of whether she and her spouse and children would attempt to flee all through a planned ceasefire, Shashenok said, “If Russian troops will not eliminate civilians tomorrow, certainly I will go on (the) 9th (of) March.” Asked all over again Tuesday, Shashenok stated her spouse and children had no ideas nonetheless to go away the bunker.

Even with the concern of encroaching violence from Russia, Shashenok still has large desires. She explained to CNN on Monday that Tik Tok is her long run now.

“Possibly I (can) appear to (the) United Stated and operate like a Tik Tok journalist,” she explained.

Hope for a new life and a new starting is what retains Shashenok likely. “People need to benefit flexibility. It’s the most crucial (detail) we have.”

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