By Catherine Pepinster
The way in which children are increasingly being targeted in wartime is the subject of an exhibition that opened at the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in central London on Wednesday.
Child of War features the paintings of the war in Ukraine by Arabella Dorman and art by children from Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and Britain. It reveals not only the immediate impact of war — losing parents, homes and schools — but also its lasting psychological impact on a whole generation of children.
Among the artworks is Child’s Play, a painting by Dorman featuring Ukrainian boys playing with toys. A closer look reveals what the toys are broken bits of bombed-out vehicles.
“I’ve often witnessed children at play who have only ever known war, and known a language of bombs and loss and persecution,” Dorman said. “They then repeat that language. So these two boys who should be playing in the dirt with bricks and toys are actually playing with bombed-out vehicles.
“It’s a metaphor for the fact that damaged people go on to damage people. I’ve called it Child’s Play because so much of war by politicians is called war gaming and it’s far from any game.”
There are also installations of items Dorman found during a visit to Ukraine last year, including a broken teddy bear and a motanka doll — a Ukrainian symbol of hope — that Dorman spotted in an abandoned school, next to an airfield, that had been bombed by Russian troops.
As Bishop Kenneth Nowakowski, whose cathedral, the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Holy Family of London, is hosting the show, said: “The exhibition is both fabulous and tragic.”
The mental health charity Beyond Conflict, which aims to help children caught up in war, has been involved in setting up the exhibition. Its founder, Edna Fernandes, said: “Children have always been targeted in wars but now it is the norm.”
The war in Ukraine, which began in February 2022 when Russia invaded, had “robbed a whole generation of children of childhood”, she said.
“We have to ask what will happen to them as they grow up. They have the daily issue of bombs, grieving for loved ones killed, schools gone, everything wiped out. It means they suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicidal thoughts — and these things can be handed on to future generations. This exhibition is testament to this suffering.”
Dorman travelled to Ukraine in July 2023 and spent 10 days visiting Kyiv, Irpin and Bucha, with Bishop Nowakowski helping her to contact people there, including a priest who helped her to visit a school bombed and requisitioned by the Russians.
“The whole place had been mined and there was graffiti from the Russians saying that it had been mined with love. They had used children’s shoes as ashtrays and there were canisters propped on books.”
In another painting, Night Terrors, Dorman depicts a child clearly tortured by memories of war, including a tank that can be seen edging closer to him.
“This is about the night terror and the fear,” she said. “It has given me sleepless nights. Everything is falling apart, a tank is almost rolling over him which is an allusion to what happened in Ukraine, Russian tanks rolled over fleeing families’ cars.”
The exhibition includes a section of back-lit images from an art competition called War Through Children’s Eyes, which Dorman judged.
“When you look at it collectively it is one great big voice of trauma but it is also of hope of pushing the shadows back, of colour, of a child’s ability to express war but to hold on to something beyond war. They are images of resilience.”
“I found this doll in a Ukrainian school. I was struck by it being a faceless doll. It was only when I showed it someone that they said it was a motanka, a talisman of hope and acts as a guardian and protector. I was troubled by it lying in the rubble and chaos of war.”
One of the most striking images in the exhibition is a work called A Mother’s Grief inspired by her work as a war artist in Syria in 2018. There, she was shocked at how many churches were damaged and how icons had huge cracks and had been shot at.
“It was as if the war had pierced the mother of Christ’s heart. It led me to think about the feeling of powerlessness as a parent that someone in this situation must have when they cannot protect their child. The Virgin Mary would have looked at her own son Jesus and thought, ‘I cannot save him.’ The Christ child there looks out straight out at the viewer with total truth and clarity. I saw the same iconography damaged in Ukraine, and Mary is looking out, which is challenging, saying, ‘You have not done enough for my son’.”
The showing of the art at the cathedral brings things full circle. The idea for Dorman’s visit to Ukraine emerged out of a conversation between the war artist and Ms Fernandes when they met at the cathedral at a requiem mass held there for victims of the war in Ukraine.
Child of War, Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral, Binney Street, London W1K 5BQ, until 6 June, 10am-5pm daily. Free admission
