The interactive installation about internally displaced persons
Fit Your Life in the Valise
challenge
With home behind them, unсertainty lies ahead
You have little time to pack, one suitcase and one life you’re pushed to begin from scratch. What would you take with you? Would you rather take necessities or your high school yearbook? Your son's favourite toy or his warm clothes? You don’t know when you will be back, or if you’ll be back at all. You wouldn’t be able to take the smell of your mother’s home with you or the sense of a place you belong to.
Over 1.5 million internally displaced persons from Crimea and the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions have experienced this terrible situation. But have all other Ukrainians fully understood these horrors?
solution
Interactive art as the key to understanding
What do people feel when they hurry up to grab everything and run from war? How do you leave your home yard and garden if you might never come back? How do you start a new life in another city with just one suitcase? We have tried to communicate the difficult experience of IDPs through interactive art. This is how the 'Fit Your Life in the Valise' installation was created.
Its goal is to help overcome stereotypes and prejudices that exist towards IDPs, as well as to deepen mutual understanding between displaced people and residents of large unoccupied Ukrainian cities. The installation alternately remained on display in Kyiv, Lviv and Odesa for a month (from May to July 2019).
We have equipped two interactive rooms to implement this idea. The first one recreated the atmosphere of an ordinary Ukrainian flat. In this flat visitors, within a limited time, needed to gather things from the list. Afterwards, visitors proceeded to the next room where they wore VR glasses. The 360-degree video provides the most realistic representation of the typical locations that IDPs usually meet on their path. The checkpoint, the station, social security centre, boarding house and, finally, a rented flat.
“Human stories often turn into statistics, with which it’s difficult to prompt empathy. Вut when, through such artistic approaches, you understand how it feels to be a displaced person, this is the core thing, that refers to a person and affects his/her perception of this issue”, said Alim Aliyev from the Crimean House rights advocacy platform at the unveiling of the installation in Kyiv.
Another goal of the project was to bring back the topic of IDPs to the media agenda. Because it has been appearing less and less in the information space lately. This, in turn, let society believe that the problems of displaced persons have already been resolved. At the opening of the installation in each city, we brought together representatives of NGOs, Ministry of Social Policy representatives, local authorities and IDPs themselves, who shared their stories and reflections on what the state and society can do for IDPs.
outcome
To sense and to understand new neighbors
In the three months of the installation we received:
- 976 visitors in three cities;
- 121 materials in the media, including 15 television features;
- 110 social media mentions with the project’s hashtag #ЖиттяСпочатку (#LifeFromTheStart).
Wide media coverage was facilitated, among other things, by the fact that we have been able to enlist opinion leaders:
- 20 representatives of relevant NGOs (Donbass SOS, Vostok SOS, Crimean House, IDP Counselor Program);
- the installation was visited by Ukrainian Social Policy Minister Andriy Reva and a People's Deputy in the field of protection of rights of IDPs, Natalia Velesova;
- Kateryna Kit, wife of Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi posted about the event on Facebook.
The most important thing is that visitors were positively predisposed towards the installation. Communication in the language of emotion and art has awakened a sense of empathy in people who have never had such experiences. Guests were able to share the impressions of what they saw and felt on social media and in the Review Book. We provide just a few reviews below (you can see photos of the notes from the Book at the link):
“Maybe one day this is all over. But only if we’re all together. Thank you for this installation.”
“The situation in which people have found themselves moved me deeply. The pain of people makes me cry.”
“The project impressed me and touched me incredibly deeply, it has awakened enormous compassion towards our people, who have experienced such a difficult life situation as forced displacements. I wish 1.5 million people happiness, patience, hope for a better life. The worst is over.”
“Got incredible impressions! It’s very important for people who have a negative attitude towards IDPs and have no idea what happens, to attend this event.”
“Great installation! It’s necessary for every citizen of Ukraine. Because at present there’s a lack of compassion and understanding in society. That’s exactly what will save us! That’s what will save Ukraine!”
The project was implemented by The Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation of the German Marshall Fund (BST). We thank our partners for believing in our idea and helping to make it happen.