I got in touch with Kseniia, an artist who is currently making art from deactivated weapons given to her by the army, via via. She then has to clean those weapons first and then lift them to eight high, to start painting it in her flat. She invited me to her home, in a suburb of Kharkiv, towards the front line. On the balcony she has a small vegetable garden, and somewhere else in Ukraine they have an outhouse where they grow a lot of vegetables and fruit.

When I arrived at her home, she came to pick me up downstairs. In her flat, I immediately had to take off my shoes and wash my hands. Her friend had made borscht for us, which was simmering in the kitchen that had only just been finished. They live in a beautiful bright flat, which they have taken great care to make a home. Shortly after my return from Ukraine, a missile crashed near their house, popping out many of those beautiful big windows in the apartment building next door.

After lunch, I got to go take pictures of Kseniia. She had a quiet music on and showed me one by one the weapons she had painted. When I asked her what her art of making these weapons means to her, I could see that it touched her and how close war and art come together here. She sells these painted weapons and the money she makes from them goes directly to the Ukrainian army. When I had my exhibition and sent photos of it to Kseniia, she appended that they were in their country house and she went to pick apricots to make jam.