Yuliia Popika

This work reflects on war as an experience that transcends individual tragedy and becomes a collective state of society. In wartime, darkness becomes not only a metaphor for fear or the unknown but also a space for shared experience.

People find themselves in conditions where the future becomes uncertain and familiar structures of security collapse. In this state, a paradoxical form of unity emerges: togetherness born from grief. This condition can be compared to the allegory of the cave, where people exist in a world of shadows and only partially perceive reality.

During war, society also experiences limited knowledge: information is fragmented, and reality is perceived through fear, loss, and constant tension. Darkness in this context becomes a condition of existence, forcing people to reconsider their place in the world.

At the same time, the idea of shared suffering conveys pain through the universal basis of human experience. Suffering connects people, creating a deeper sense of solidarity. In the context of war, this idea is particularly acute: individual tragedies accumulate into a collective historical trauma. The work depicts the fragility of the human world and how quickly seemingly stable systems can collapse.

Here, darkness appears not only as a symbol of loss but also as a space for shared experience, in which the awareness of mutual dependence emerges in the face of historical catastrophes.