EP.8: How to find purpose as a Ukrainian artist with Anna Sarvira

00:00:05: Luzia Tschirky Welcome to the podcast «Yak ty?» Ukraine Live. «Yak ty» means in Ukrainian, how are you? I'm your host, Luzia Tschirky I am a former correspondent, now a book author and a freelancer. The aim of this podcast is to give Ukrainians an opportunity to share their very personal experience of Russia's full-scale invasion. On this podcast, I'm usually talking to a guest joining us live from Ukraine. Today's guest on the show is a Ukrainian artist who talks to us from Germany. I am more than delighted to welcome today's guest on the podcast, Anna Sarvira. Anna Sarvira is a Ukrainian artist and curator based in Cologne. Her graphic works and illustrations have been awarded and exhibited worldwide. Anna has illustrated more than 30 books and created styles for the international children's TV show Brave Bunnies. Among her clients are the United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the European Commission. In 2014, Anna founded the Pictoric Illustrators Club with Oleg Grishenko and Olena Staranchuk. The Pictoric Illustrators Club organizes exhibitions in Ukraine and abroad. Hi Anna, welcome to the podcast.

00:01:12: Anna Sarvira: Hi, nice to meet you, Luzia.

00:01:14: Luzia Tschirky I always start this podcast with the question, how are you? How are you right now?

00:01:21: Anna Sarvira Dobre (good), thank you. I'm more or less fine, I think, because I'm much safer than most Ukrainians are right now. Yeah, I'm doing well. Thank you.

00:01:35: Luzia Tschirky I'm very glad to hear that you're doing fine. You were born in 1986 in Kyiv in, Ukraine, and you graduated in your hometown from the National Institute of Art and Architecture. What made you become an artist in the first place?

00:01:50: Anna Sarvira It's a good question because nobody from my family is an artist. So for my parents, it was a surprise that I decided to become an illustrator, and they didn't have any clear idea what I would do. When I will graduate, they imagine me selling some illustrations or art on the streets or something like that. So, it wasn't supposed to be my career. To tell the truth, I just love to draw, and I love to read all the time. So when I was... Graduating from school, I already had an idea that I wanted to do something connected to the books and the drawing, and it was an illustration. I had very, I'm still surprised that I had a very clear idea at 17 that I just wanted to be an illustrator, nothing else.

00:02:38: Luzia Tschirky Was that difficult at times, you know, to follow your dream to become an illustrator?

00:02:43: Anna Sarvira I think so. The older I get the weirder it is getting for me that you have to sometimes decide your future when you're 16, 17, 18, because I think it's hard. Like for me, was like hard because back then, you know, there was no internet like it was, but it was not like nowadays. So you didn't have an idea what would happen, like how it would happen. What will you do in your future? There were no podcasts from famous illustrators, so I didn't have any clear idea what I would do. But I'm very grateful that my parents were very supportive. And when I told them I want to be an illustrator, they were like, okay, it's weird, but yeah, okay, let's do that. And so I just like jumped in and into something I didn't understand how it's working. I like, yeah, I entered the art academy. After that, it was much easier because I was surrounded by people who also wanted to be artists or were artists and they did not always have an idea what are they doing but it was a group of people who wanted the same thing that I did. yeah, yeah, back then I think that nowadays it's a bit easier to become an illustrator. Also because I think nowadays the illustration itself is more popular, we have internet, we need a lot of visual things. Like so, I mean, back then... When you are an illustrator, only illustrated books mainly and maybe some posters that all fit it.

00:04:15: Luzia Tschirky If I understood it correctly you were living in Kyiv when the full-scale invasion started. How did the full-scale invasion change your life personally?

00:04:31: Anna Sarvira I should just mention that I was in Kyiv, I lived in Kyiv, but when the full-scale war started, at this time I was in Germany, and that's how I ended up in Germany. I went on a trip and I never returned from the trip. yeah, it's just the condition. But I mean, I ended up in a totally new environment. Like I just woke up this morning when the full-scale invasion started. I was in another country and I realized that everybody I knew, almost everybody I knew, they're in danger and I didn't know if I would ever see them again. So it was, I guess, the hardest moment to realize that everybody, my family, my friends, they're like in danger there and I cannot even do anything. Like that was this helpless feeling was the worst, I guess. But yeah, it changed everything and I think... Like from the perspective of feeling safe, I don't know if any other Ukrainians, guess, it's hard for me to even imagine if you can feel safe being in Ukraine, but being out of Ukraine, I'm still not feeling safe enough because now I know that anything can happen in this world. So yeah, I guess that's the biggest thing that changed in my life. So I stopped feeling safe all the time. I stopped feeling that nothing bad would happen. And that's the biggest change that full-scale invasion did to me. But yeah, and anyway I ended up in this new environment and I just had to restart a bit my life from the very beginning here in Germany. I was very lucky that I had friends here. I knew some people, so I was not like most of the refugees who just came to nowhere where they knew nobody. And I understand that I was very lucky not to be on my own in these hard times. But anyway, was, yeah, I just started, I'm feeling like I'm having a bit restarted my life from scratch.

00:06:29: Luzia Tschirky Was being creative for you personally difficult during the full-scale invasion or was it for you like an escape road?

00:06:39: Anna Sarvira It's both, I guess, because especially when I'm thinking about 2022, I feel that I was not myself. I was a bit going crazy at that time and making illustrations that were about the war, about what's happening in Ukraine, like organizing exhibitions. It helped me because I was putting all my anger there. I felt like it's a bit of a psychotherapy, like when you are just drawing what you feel. And from the other side I cannot say I was very creative because it was not really about creativity. It was about the war, about politics, about my anger, but not about, so some illustrations, some posters I did back then. I don't think they are like good as an art, but they are good as a memory of what happened, like so. Yeah, in 2022 I couldn't do anything else except the images about the war. So for me, it's very hard. It was very hard to imagine that I could just stop and say, okay, now I'm drawing, I don't know, a peaceful life or like some sketches. So it was half half. On one side I was engaged in drawing the war. On the other side, I couldn't do anything else. So, I was very happy that I could draw at least because I know that a lot of people, they felt lost. After all, they didn't even know what to do at this time. of the world, couldn't do anything and they lost their jobs, they lost everything. I also didn't have so many work to do, but I could just draw for myself. was enough for me to calm down a bit.

00:08:24: Luzia Tschirky You just described that during the first year of Russia's full-scale invasion, the themes of your work were all related to the full-scale invasion, to war. Looking at the work that currently got published, I mean, I just show it to those who watch the video, and for the others, I will describe it briefly. So you other artists, this is actually how I came across you and your work because you and other artists from the Pictoric Collective helped design wall calendar and your works in the calendar like this for example, this piece of work, your works deals with everyday scenes in Ukraine. Like for example a train ride and another one deals like with a market sale. Can you describe what made you choose like these kind of you know normal like daily scenes from Ukraine which are not related to the full-scale invasion at first sight.

00:09:19: Anna Sarvira Mm-hmm. To tell the truth, this is an ongoing project and it started in 2016. And we keep doing that. So for example, the latest edition made for this project was this year. So we updated it, we did new posters and it has 150 posters. The project is called Yellow Blue. And it's about actually, actually it is about the daily life in Ukraine. Because back in 2016, me and... like the guys from Pictoric, we were organizing exhibitions abroad and we actually realized that nobody knows so many things about Ukraine. like, I mean, people didn't knew a lot. Also, like some people didn't know like the things that we thought they know, for example, Chernobyl is in Ukraine. And we thought, okay, how can we show what's Ukraine? Like we can show everything like we know, like we feel we have every day. And that's how the project started. So we just decided to draw posters about our lives, like what we like in Ukraine, what we maybe dislike in Ukraine, but we still face it every day, like Marshrutkas, for example. don't know if the listeners, the audience knows what Marshrutka is, it's like small minibusses. So we were just, we started to draw things that we really face every day in Ukraine. And this calendar, it has some like posters from this project. And our main idea was not to show, you know, this official Ukraine only with traditions or with culture. So we mixed everything. So for example, there you can find my illustration with «Platzkart» with the trains, which I took a lot of them when I was a student and every Ukrainian did. But you also can find something about the traditions of Ukraine or its culture. So it's a mixed project. And this year we unfortunately had to update it also in the way that everyday life in Ukraine is the war.

00:11:17: Anna Sarvira And the war became an everyday life in Ukraine. So basically this project started like, it's a bit of a fun and like project, but now it's not so fun, but now it shows more complete picture of Ukraine nowadays. yeah.

00:11:33: Luzia Tschirky It's very interesting to hear that people were not really connecting anything to Ukraine in former times. Can you describe what were the reactions when people heard that you were from Ukraine? What were people's reactions to that?

00:11:50: Anna Sarvira You mean in 2016? It's anyway a problem for Ukraine and for lot of other countries around Russia because every time everybody was talking about, let's talk about culture from Eastern Europe or whatever, was always Russia first and nobody really cared what's happening in Ukraine, Moldova. or Belarus and nobody knew about that except some people who had some interest. So when we were talking about Ukraine a lot of people they were like interesting they could hear about maybe Kyiv or some I don't know sportsmen like Shevchenko, Klitschko but they knew a few things but in general they didn't understand some people were not really even sure if we are some separate country or not. Anyway, a lot of people also showed their interest in Ukraine. And I think from maybe 2014, 2015, it started to grow, like also because we had more connecting flights, more people were just coming to see what's Ukraine, like more foreigners were coming. So I think when we started the project, we heard a bit more people saying, I've never been there. But in 2019 already like... A lot of people were saying, my friend visited Ukraine or I visited Ukraine. The most common funny comment was that people were asking, why do you have so many coffee places in Ukraine? Because it's our very funny thing that we have coffee kiosks every 100 meters. That's what I was missing so much here in Germany. Because in Ukraine, to have a good coffee, it's easy peasy. You're getting out of the flat and you're already there. Yeah, so yeah, I mean, it started to change slowly. Also, think because of a lot of cultural projects that Ukraine was bringing anyway out of Ukraine to some other countries, like we did, basically, it was our personal initiative, but we were somehow pushing it. Like we were showing to other people, look what's happening in our country. So.

00:13:56: Anna Sarvira I would say it was 50-50. Some people were surprised, some people already knew something. It was a good feeling because we felt like something was changing. I would say even through this short period from 2014 to Corona times, we already saw that people are getting engaged. We needed bit more time to show what Ukraine is, but unfortunately first COVID, then full-scale war and... Yeah, now Ukraine is more known for the war rather for its culture.

00:14:32: Luzia Tschirky But that you choose these kind of images to be published in the calendar, like the images of daily life and not some of the work you did in the first year of Russia's full-scale invasion, which were all related to war topic. What was the reason for you personally to choose these everyday life scenes and not others?

00:14:56: Anna Sarvira Yeah. I think first of all it's changed so if it were 2022 we probably would suggest the war images but first reason like we actually I personally see but now also call it my colleagues also see that it's changing people are tired of the images of the war of the missiles of destruction so And I can understand them. mean, like, unfortunately, the war in Ukraine became something that's happening every day for almost three years. So like, you're not surprising people by them by that. And the other thing we realized, we don't want Ukraine to be just associated with the war. We don't want Ukraine to be the country of the war. That's important for us. And that's how we recently did all our exhibitions. We are trying to talk about Ukraine. also about the war, not in the context, look, this house was destroyed. We are trying to also show the culture that is behind us, like the history of Ukraine, all these things, because I think it's much more important to show people what Ukraine is or what Ukraine was like before the full-scale invasion, what's happening now, but yeah, like in the context of culture because I personally think that it's much easier to support. people or countries if you know something about them. And a lot of people like, yeah, they were supporting Ukraine in the beginning just because they were kind, but probably if they know a bit more, they know what are they saving, what are they supporting, what are they fighting for? Like that we have a great culture, great people, and these people just need a bit of help.

00:16:40: Luzia Tschirky Would you say this is also like the act of freedom and of choice that you are not only defined by the war that was brought to you by Russia but also like by your very own identity is that also related to your choice of publishing like these everyday images of life?

00:17:00: Anna Sarvira Probably. It's hard to say, but we just don't want to be defined also by Russia. It's important to talk about the war. cannot avoid that, but we also can talk about something else. That's it. That's how we put it. That's what we're asking people if they want to do exhibitions about Ukraine with us. We usually say, let's do it not only about the war because we are not only the war.

00:17:29: Luzia Tschirky Were there ever moments during the... you already mentioned that the full-scale invasion is nearly going on for three years now. Were there ever moments when you thought like that maybe art is now senseless? where is the aim and the meaning of art when this destruction is happening in the country and people are dying? Were there ever moments when you were asking yourself these kind of questions?

00:17:56: Anna Sarvira Definitely, especially in the very beginning. I mean, I still have these moments because, you know, when I'm talking that it's important to represent Ukraine only in the culture, you know, at the same time we have like some civil Ukrainians or even people from the Ukrainian army who are dying right now somewhere in the East. So I'm talking here about the culture sitting in Germany and it's one thing, but yeah, people are still facing the war in the East of Ukraine at least. So for me, it was very difficult in the very beginning of the full-scale war. I was really feeling that I'm useless as a human. What can I do? I'm not a doctor. I'm not a soldier. I cannot help. And I think it was a feeling of being lost a bit. Like what can I do? But to tell the truth, I still think that culture is helping. It's probably not a direct help. You cannot see it. you are like, okay, why are you drawing that? But I felt it like when I was drawing, when I was organizing the exhibition and I still do that people, when they see illustrations, they see our posters, they can understand a bit more about what's happening. I also feel that when I was drawing illustrations, I could explain something to people. Also, if they were not ready to take my point of view, I could start the conversation with them by... showing the poster and saying, look, that's my point of view, let's talk about that. So I always feel that this cultural exchange is the point of some discussion. You can start the discussion. That's important. So, yeah, for me, it was definitely very difficult to understand why I'm doing that. But I I felt that exhibitions and in general culture is changing, changing something. So like when you're showing here also in Germany to the people. what Ukrainian culture is, they can understand why we don't want to give up. Because if we will give up in this war, we will also give up our culture. It will be destroyed anyway.

00:20:03: Luzia Tschirky Would you say that you were working also with this collective you co-founded with Pictoric? Did that help you? Seeing Assents and having hope for moving on and doing even more exhibitions, did that help you during these times?

00:20:08: Anna Sarvira Okay.

00:20:20: Anna Sarvira Yeah, think definitely. you know, I think that we were like a group of people, just like separate people. It was very helpful because basically we did all of us did some posters, some illustrations related to the war. But in general, we moved as a group and we could do something bigger. We could support each other. We could see that, like, you know, also like When you are as an artist talking about the war, there are still some borders you cannot cross. You have to be sometimes sensitive to what the viewer will see. And it was also helpful because I could see how my colleagues are talking about the war in their artworks and I could also learn from them. And we could also feel the support of the whole group when we were discussing how we will do the next exhibition, what we can do. Again, making... big projects, big exhibitions helped us to, for example, collect a lot of money for Ukraine, especially in the very beginning of the full-scale war when we did that. it was a very, yeah, for me it was a great experience that I could actually relay on people that feel the same. And I also felt a bit more responsible because not so many people from our group, they were out of Ukraine. Most of my colleagues, they... They're staying in Ukraine since the full-scale war started and they're not going anywhere out. So I'm one of a few artists who is staying abroad and I'm feeling responsible to represent them, to help push our exhibitions all over Europe at least. So it gives me some goals, some propose of what I'm doing.

00:22:06: Luzia Tschirky you have the impression that comparing to colleagues who are staying in Ukraine, like the other artists, for example, of Pictoric, you have the impression that this living in two very different realities, the one reality you experience in Cologne, Germany, and the reality they experience, for example, in Kiev or in other cities of Ukraine, you say that this influences your art and your art becomes a little bit different of each other because of the different circumstances you're living your everyday life.

00:22:43: Anna Sarvira Yes, it's definitely, I think it's a very good question because it's definitely a thing and I was scared about this difference, know, because basically it was one of the, when the full scale war started, it was one of the hardest moment of our lives and we experienced it totally differently. And I know that it makes a bit of a gap between me and my friends because what they feel, they experience and what I did, it's totally different. And they have their own traumas that I can never understand and I can never feel. Even if I'm coming to Ukraine from time to time to visit my family or my friends, it's still not the same as living there. And it obviously has an impact on our art. And I also felt that, especially in 2022, that some topics I'm not doing just because I didn't experience them. Like, for example, being in the bomb shelter. I mean, I did it when I was visiting Ukraine later on, but anyway, I didn't do it as they did. like, yeah, we worked with different topics, I would even say. And for me, it was an obvious choice when I stayed in Germany to make my illustrations for the local audience. So when I ended up in Germany, I realized that here I can feel what people are talking about, what are they feeling. What are they confused about? What are the questions about the war in Ukraine? And my art was very direct. was towards the people who are living in Germany, in Europe in general. And my topics were about that. So basically, I personally tried to explain what's happening in Ukraine. I tried to explain my main statements. Why do Ukrainians think like that and not like that? While a lot of my colleagues did more... more like documentary stuff. So they were like showing their everyday life in Ukraine in the bomb shelters during the evacuation and so on. So we did a bit different job sometimes, but it was anyway like all about the war, but from different perspectives, I would say. And I think it was the right way because like what we experienced still very different things.

Luzia: When you're going back to visit Ukraine for a short time, I assume that you as an artist, you drive through the country and walk through the country with very open eyes, trying to collect inspiration for your work. Would you say what you have seen in Ukraine since you traveled back to the country, would you say you've seen how the country has changed to some ways? What has caught your eyes during your travels back to Ukraine.

00:25:31: Anna Sarvira I think definitely, yeah, it was very hard for me, but definitely there are like, there are much less people than I remembered. So when I returned to Ukraine, I could feel that there are less people living right now in the country. You could just feel it from everything everywhere, like how the traffic jam is working. Like, I mean, my friends, they don't agree. They say, okay, like in... March 2022 it was much worse and I can understand that but I still I remember how it was before the full-scale war invasion and I was really like surprised I mean it was not surprised but I could really feel that it's it's like that and I think the other thing you could really in every city you could feel them and see the marks of the war so destroyed houses like people with prosthesis I think they're called prosthesis here like So people who were injured by the war, also soldiers that were injured by the war, it's all like, you cannot say that you're in a peaceful country because you can just feel the signs of the war everywhere. And for me, I guess it was what caught my eye the most.

00:26:44: Would you say when you look at the work you have done before the full-scale invasion and the work you do now, would you say you also see like in the way you create your art a difference that was influenced by the full-scale invasion? Or would you say you try not to be influenced that much by Russia's full-scale invasion?

00:27:05: Anna Sarvira I cannot say that I'm trying to not be influenced, but I'm trying to find my way because if like in 2022 I did only the war images, now I'm luckily doing not only the war because to tell the truth you can go bit crazy if you only draw in the war. So like I have very different projects and very different arts that often like I think 80 % of my projects they were related. But anyway. I'm trying to be, I guess, a bit different nowadays. And because when I saw my works in 2022, I mean, they were so dark, like the colors were dark. I'm actually, I was well-known as an artist who works with very bright colors. So, you know, I was using neon pink, neon yellow, neon blue. And then you see my Instagram feed from 2022 and it was totally. black and red and like very, yeah, so definitely I had some impact from the full-scale invasion. I was feeling that, but nowadays I'm trying to change it a bit. I'm trying to work with the colors, not because I'm depressed by the war, but because I'm choosing the colors, how they're fitting this image. So I'm trying to go back to a bit normal way of drawing when you know what you're doing because I think Working in 2022 was also a bit, I would say, I don't know, like I was just not thinking about colors. I was just doing what I felt. Now I'm a bit more like, yeah, becoming my normal self, I would say.

00:28:46: Luzia Tschirky Can you describe for people who are not artists and maybe are not, so familiar with the details of creating art or how that works, how the process exactly changed. So when you were doing art before Russia's full-scale invasion and doing art nowadays, what in the process changed for you when you come up with ideas and then when you choose the colors, what they change in this kind of process and what are you aiming for when you say like the normal process.

00:29:20: Anna Sarvira I think the process didn't change so much, I definitely, when I'm doing my illustrations, I'm doing a lot of sketches, I'm thinking a lot, I'm doing some color combination, I'm checking how it's working, so I have a lot of thinking process. Also, I'm thinking about how the audience will feel when they see my poster, how the colors will impress them. And when I was working, especially in 2022, I probably skipped a lot of these moments when I was thinking because I was very emotional. I was really like putting all my emotions in. So if I felt like depressed, dark, scared, you could feel it that I felt so. I was, I think the important thing was that I sometimes was not really thinking about audience. I mean, often try to, but sometimes I was, it was so hard for me to. to keep inside all this pain that I was like just putting it outside. I don't think it's working well because like, because as an illustrator, I tried to talk to people and when you're hurting people with your images, it's maybe not the way you have to work as an illustrator. So yeah, I think I was just more like an emotional person who was just putting everything out. Now I'm a bit more calm and I can, I have time to, you know, do the sketch, put it aside. then come back and maybe check and think about that. In 2022 I was just like, no, I want to draw that. It's so, cannot keep it inside. And it was, it was a bit crazy, but yeah, that was the time.

00:31:02: Luzia Tschirky When you compare yourself to artists in Germany who are not from a country that is currently suffering a full-scale invasion and when you see what they're aiming for or when you're trying to understand what they're aiming for, what is it for you when you see that they have not such a higher aim as making Germany as a culture or Germany as a country more known to the world when they're maybe aiming for just more personal reasons like making their art the process of being creative. What is that? What you feel like when you compare and see when you compare your work to work from German artists, illustrators.

00:31:43: Anna Sarvira Actually, I think it's an interesting comparison because I really can feel that the German illustration market, illustration society is very different from Ukraine. And it's also, think, partly has not even so many things to do with the war. It's just, you know, there are some established countries that are very strong with illustration. So you don't have to push your culture because people already know you. It's like if you're talking about illustrations, example, Germany, France, Italy, like people know this illustrator so they don't have to like say, okay, look, this is our culture. While smaller countries like I think Ukraine or Moldova, they have to do that because people don't know that. But for me, it's interesting because I think both ways are working. I mean, like we are just on the different stages of our, I don't know, development of institutions, of culture, of representation. So I actually sometimes invite German artists because they can like draw like a bit more like fun or cultural stuff nowadays. I mean, and I'm still, I'm also trying to join that because like you said, I said before, you cannot only draw the war, even if your country is in the war, you have at least sometimes to do something else. So I would just say that I like what German illustrators are doing and it's totally, totally understandable that you cannot. Yeah, you can just do your personal project and it's totally fine. And again, when I'm thinking about that, like I realized it only when the full-scale war in Ukraine started, but there was, for example, already the war in Ukraine since 2014. And I was not like thinking about the war in Ukraine back then every day. I do now. or like there was a war in Syria as an Ukrainian artist, I was not so much engaged with the war in Syria. So it's just like, always think that it's just the matter of your experience. As soon as you experience the war, you see the things differently. So I'm actually very happy that people here in Germany, like German illustrators, they can just do something interesting for themselves. They're also engaged in some, I mean, like I saw a lot of posters from German illustrators supporting Ukraine, for example.

00:34:04: Anna Sarvira I mean, they just can, they can do stuff they want to do and they don't always have to fight, you know, because for a lot of Ukrainian illustrators, their work is basically a fight and they are doing a bit of a propaganda, I would say, like not always only poor art.

00:34:23: Luzia Tschirky Do you yourself feel that you're always fighting?

00:34:28: Anna Sarvira Not always, but often. mean, you know, every time we have a chance to do something, some project, for example, as a group as Pictoric, we always think how to do it to support Ukraine. It's like sometimes like we all like, for example, to create funny characters, to draw something funny. But right now we are not like thinking about that. We are not trying to do that because If we are doing some bigger projects like exhibitions or like illustration shows, we're feeling that if we will do just a show about funny characters, we will miss the opportunity to remind people about Ukraine. So right now I definitely feel that we are not always like just doing the art art. We are like often doing something like it's more like a political statement often. And yeah, that's that's what our life is about now. And we cannot change it, it's just a part of our life. We have to accept that right now it's what's needed. And it gives us also the feeling that we are doing something right.

00:35:37: Luzia Tschirky Can you describe a little bit, you're still doing like exhibitions abroad and in Ukraine. Can you describe how these exhibitions are different in a way? You know, I assume that you're doing different exhibitions in Ukraine and abroad because like the audiences are very different. Can you describe how you manage that to do?

00:36:57: Anna Sarvira It actually depends because we still have some exhibitions that are both working very well in Ukraine and abroad. I wouldn't say there is such a big difference. Definitely in Ukraine we are making different projects about Ukraine, but also we trying to bring some international artists because what's... what's important, a lot of Ukrainians are now feeling a bit isolated because they're staying in Ukraine. Some of them cannot leave the country. Some of them just don't want to go abroad. for example, everything they see, everything they get is like, it's only what's happening inside Ukraine. So we are trying to bring some international exhibitions, like the one we are doing annually. international illustration exhibition we do on the book arsenal, for example, where we unite around 60 artists from all over the world and we ask them to draw some new posters on some specific topics. Obviously, we started doing that even before the war, but now obviously these topics, they're a bit more related, but not always. We are not forcing people to draw the war and I think it's very good because if people have something to say about the war, they can say that. But if they don't, they're just drawing something funny, something nice, and it's also nice for the audience. So they don't have the reminding in every poster, there is a war in your country. we do this big illustration exhibition every year, and it's international, and people can just see how people are feeling all around the world, what are they thinking about, and it's super nice. And when we are doing exhibitions abroad, We are bit more often showing Ukrainian artists only. For example, in November we presented in Rome on Baba Yaga Festival exhibition Safe Place, where we asked people, like Ukrainian artists, to talk about the meaning of the Safe Place for them. So again, we stopped talking very directly about the war. We are not just showing the...

Anna Sarvira: missiles and destroyed houses, but we are talking a bit more generally. Ukrainian artists just show the feeling of safe place. If they have any, how it feels, maybe the safe place for you is just a person who is next to you and that's enough. And that's interesting because then you also can find a bit more of a common things with the local audience because, I mean, Italian people don't know what the war is, but they all know what the safe place is, yes? And you can start talking about that. And that's what feels important for us is to find the topics that are not so narrow, maybe a bit more wider, but a bit more related. And then when you're showing these topics abroad, it's like working much better with the local audience, I think. So that's the projects we are recently doing. And I think it's working pretty well. again, sometimes you're again showing also like international projects. abroad is also working because again engaging the local artists is always working very well and we are very happy that we actually can do that. We have a big community of artists who are supporting us all over the world so that makes our projects much bigger and easier to organize.

00:39:35: Luzia Tschirky You just mentioned that there are artists among the pictorial collective who cannot leave Ukraine. What is your personal experience of what you have seen, what colleagues went through and how far is that difficult for a person when the person is not able to leave the country and being in this constant kind of threat situation since nearly three years?

00:40:03: Anna Sarvira It's actually hard to say. I we even have some artists who are now in the army. it's just happening slowly, little by little more and more people we know are going to the army. So I would say I cannot comment on that. It's very personal. I mean, it's always a choice of people. Some people are not leaving not because they cannot, they just don't want to. I talked about that with my friends and they said it's our basically statement. We don't want to go abroad. when these things are happening to our friends, our country, our people. yeah, I think for me it's always hard to understand what I would do because I had different experience, I just wasn't already abroad. So like if I could also be so strong as they are, because I think it make... takes you lot of effort, a lot of strength to say, okay, I'm staying in the country where there is a war and I keep working. I'm always wondering how do they even have the powers to work because from my very short visit I also saw how difficult it is, for example, everyday life in Ukraine is and how difficult it is to work there because you have all these blackouts, you know, like and... electricity and air alarms so people are not sleeping well and still like my colleagues are like making this decision to stay there and they're still able to like work and work sometimes I saw that like they're working much more than I do. Well, while I was you know here in Germany depressed and stressed they were like okay we have nothing else like but work and we will work and I'm very impressed by all these things but definitely it's It's a big pressure on all of them because you're never safe, basically.

00:41:52: Luzia Tschirky What would you say, what did help you to overcome this feeling of being constantly stressed and not being able to focus on work as you would have wished? What did help you in this situation to overcome this blockage you just described?

00:42:07: Anna Sarvira I think, first you're just, it's a very weird feeling, but you're getting used to the work. So you're just at some point, you cannot be stressed over and over again about, I mean, you're just getting used and it's terrible to say, but it's happening. I think the feeling that I'm doing something, so organizing this exhibition is really helpful for us. I'm very happy that we can still do that because then it feels that you're doing something nice. But also I was very happy because in 2022 I didn't go to Ukraine but I returned there in spring of 2023 for the first time and it was really helpful for me just to see that the places I know, places I like, they're still there. I don't know how it feels to other people whose hometowns are occupied or totally destroyed but for me I mean like I was lucky to be from the central Ukraine and I could still go to my hometown, could still see that everything is there, like even if it's in danger, if it's in war, but it's still there. And I think all those things, they worked a bit. I just, I think, I can feel that in 2024, I felt a bit more like I can clearly think without being always like panic and stressing out and going a bit crazy.

00:43:34: Luzia Tschirky Can you briefly describe what you are currently working on?

00:43:39: Anna Sarvira Yes, like, I mean, as an illustrator, I can talk about different projects, I'm working as a curator for Pictoric, an illustrator. as an illustrator, I'm making now a book with my colleagues, I would say from Hong Kong, who currently live in Taiwan. I'm making a book about two kids to two, let's say, refugee kids that are meeting on the playground. But Taiwanese publisher contacted me a bit more than a year ago and they asked if I can do something like that together because a lot of people from Hong Kong, they've also flee after the protests. And like, it's the situation that's happening with Ukrainian as well. lot of Hong Kong people are living all over the world. like, they're... And we thought that it might be a nice idea to show the life of a kid on the playground from Hong Kong and from Ukraine and how they're interacting with everything. So that's the book I'm working on and I hope it will be published next year. And as a curator, we are now working on a few projects. We want to organize a few exhibitions with this project from the calendar, actually, with Yellow Blue Project. And our biggest dream is to organize next year an international illustration festival where we want to invite some speakers from abroad. I don't know how it will work definitely, but it's our very big goal and we are already having some contacts with the local authorities, with the local community. we talked with Book Arsenal, which is the biggest book fair in Ukraine. about hosting us and it's our plan to make it in September, which sounds always a bit crazy because we have to bring, I don't know, 10 people to Ukraine. But now we talked a bit with our, people we know and some of them are already ready to go to Kiev to be a speaker and super nice for us because I understand that it sounds a bit crazy and dangerous, but

00:45:55: Anna Sarvira Again, it feels that it's very important to do that because again, it feels that some people in Ukraine are definitely isolated from all these events. So they cannot visit, for example, illustration book fairs in Europe. And we want to bring them these people who are speakers there directly to Kyiv so they can go there, they can feel engaged, they can feel again the support of these people who are coming there, like basically risking their lives. Yeah, but we will see how it will work because the biggest problem of organizing something in Ukraine is that you cannot say what will happen in months, two, three. So, like our festival will be hopefully in September. And yeah, I hope it will all work.

00:46:41: Luzia Tschirky Thank you so much Anna for being my guest today on the podcast. Time is already running out. I wish you also all the very best for the book project and I really cross my finger that everything will work out fine with the festival in Ukraine. Thank you very much for being my guest today.

00:11:50: Yeah, thank you so much. Bye.