Through Young Eyes: The War They See

The House of Lucie Gallery is proud to present Through Young Eyes: The War They See, the first solo exhibition from the Behind Blue Eyes charity project. This exhibition, running from 1 May 2025, to 14 May 2025, offers a rare glimpse into the experiences of young survivors who document their daily lives amid conflict.

Unlike traditional conflict photography, these images are captured by the children themselves—offering an unfiltered perspective of the devastation and resilience they witness first-hand. The exhibition invites viewers to see war through a deeply personal lens, reflecting not only loss and destruction but also hope, endurance, and the indomitable human spirit.


Through Young Eyes: The War They See is the first solo exhibition from Behind Blue Eyes, a charity project founded by Artem Skorohodko and Dmytro Zubkov. What started as a grassroots initiative has evolved into a powerful charity group that provides children with disposable cameras to document their realities without interference. The project began in Lukashivka, Chernihiv Oblast, shortly after its liberation in 2022, and has since expanded to 19 villages across Ukraine, collecting more than 4,000 photographs that offer a raw account of life in a war zone.


These images capture striking contrasts: the wreckage of bombed-out homes juxtaposed with moments of laughter and friendship; the silence of destroyed landscapes alongside the determination to rebuild; a child's gaze reflecting both sorrow and unwavering strength. Each frame tells a story that demands attention, empathy, and action.

This exhibition serves not only as a documentation of war’s impact on children but also as a call for awareness and reflection. By providing a voice to these young photographers, Through Young Eyes: The War They See underscores the importance of seeing, understanding, and acknowledging the realities they endure every day.

Curated by Vivian Wan with support from the Farmani Group, Through Young Eyes: The War They See offers a powerful and moving tribute to the resilience of Ukraine’s children.



DEDICATION
The exhibition will be dedicated to the memory of Arman Soldin, a Bosnian-born French AFP video journalist renowned for his reporting in Ukraine. Born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Soldin was evacuated to France as an infant during the Bosnian War. He was tragically killed by a rocket attack on 9 May 2023, while reporting near Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region. His death was widely mourned, and he was posthumously awarded the Legion of Honour by France.



Behind Blue Eyes
Behind Blue Eyes is a charity project that supports children from deoccupied and frontline villages in Ukraine, helping them pursue their dreams through creativity and modern forms of self-expression. The project operates in various formats, from organizing photo expeditions and recording podcasts to hosting educational festivals. Its main goal is to help children preserve their ability to dream and look boldly toward the future despite the traumatic experiences of war.

The Behind Blue Eyes project was founded in the spring of 2022 by a team of volunteers who initially focused on supporting de-occupied villages in the Chernihiv region, delivering food, clothing, and other humanitarian aid. While working with local families, the children particularly moved the volunteers. Despite their experiences, the children perceived the world entirely differently from adults — more brightly, positively, and emotionally. This inspired the idea of giving them disposable film cameras, allowing them to capture anything they wanted, free from tasks or instructions.

The resulting photos amazed the team with their unconventional perspectives and storytelling. The children were asked to write down their dream lists along with the developed film to complement the images. This marked the beginning of Behind Blue Eyes — a project that started with children's photos and stories shared on Instagram and later exhibited in a Kyiv gallery. As the community grew, it began raising funds to help fulfill the children's dreams.

In this way, the children's photos became a unique form of war documentation and a powerful means of showing them how creativity — especially photography — can help turn dreams into reality.

Today, besides photo expeditions, the Behind Blue Eyes team implements several other projects.

The Blue Eyed Podcast is a series of conversations with children about their daily lives and dreams in Ukraine’s frontline and de-occupied villages. The podcasts are recorded in familiar settings—at home, school, or in the yard—creating a relaxed atmosphere that helps children reflect on beauty, friendship, and the future. In 2024, The Blue Eyed Podcast was recognized as the best podcast in the interview genre, winning the Slushno Award from Megogo Ukraine.

Blyshchyk is a series of creative festivals for children, first held in the de-occupied villages of the Mykolaiv region in the summer of 2024. The festivals aim to create a space for children to explore, connect, and express themselves while introducing them to various creative fields—architecture, cinema, art, design, music, and more. They also provide an opportunity for children to engage with these disciplines firsthand. Beyond offering new forms of leisure, Blyshchyk seeks to inspire adults to modernize after-school programs and rethink community spaces for children. The Behind Blue Eyes team documented the journey of creating and hosting the first festivals in their own documentary road movie, Blyshchyk. South.

Each Behind Blue Eyes project offers children a unique way to express their dreams and aspirations, share their perspectives on the world, and speak about the war they are forced to grow up in. The initiative focuses on rural areas because children here are often the most isolated from modern opportunities for learning and development. In these communities, creativity is still seen as a secondary or even frivolous pursuit, and many families lack the resources to provide children with broader growth opportunities.

Behind Blue Eyes' mission is to show that creativity is a powerful tool for self-expression, making dreams come true, earning a living, and shaping a future full of possibilities.