Since February 24, on our MORE network screens and on Warexpo Smart Citylight network screens in Warsaw, we have been broadcasting fourteen spots with photographs by Olga Maistrenko. Olga took pictures in the basement of a kindergarten in Bucha in February 2022. For nearly 2 weeks, it was a shelter for her family and other city residents.

Bucha, Hero City of Ukraine

Olga: When does a photographer, one who photographs family celebrations, as I was in Bucha, take pictures?
When there are baptisms, weddings, receptions, birthdays, when it's joyful and there's an occasion.
War is not that occasion.

Bucha is a city in the Kyiv region, one with the honorary title of Hero City. In February and March, Russian soldiers committed crimes against the civilian population there, among other places. Olga Maistrenko, a photographer, Ukrainian, resident of Bucha, spent nearly 2 weeks after the escalation of Russian aggression with her family in the basement of the kindergarten her daughter attended. The basement was designed as a shelter for 100 people, but at its peak, 350 people lived there. About half were children of various ages, from infants to teenagers.

Important Topics in out of Home

Olga: When we took shelter in my daughter's kindergarten basement, I took my camera with me. Not to take pictures there, but so it wouldn't get destroyed. But people said: since you have a camera, take pictures, you have to take them. This is our story. Take them. So that no one can later say that this didn't happen, that it didn't occur.

The photographs capture moments from the turn of February and March 2022. The days look almost normal. Children play cards, people sit on beds, on chairs, someone prepares a meal in a large pot, someone has medicines ready, boys sweep the floor, a dog demands attention. The basement was recently painted with colorful pictures, in case it would have to shelter children and their families again.

DOOH: Information, Coverage, Documentation.

Olga: After a few days, I couldn't pick up the camera anymore. I didn't touch it for almost three months, even when we were already safe in Warsaw. I simply couldn't, my hands were shaking, something was gripping me inside. Suddenly I couldn't take pictures. Taking pictures was no longer associated with people's joy for me. Such moments and such images as those from the kindergarten were recorded not only in the camera. They were also recorded in me.

Olga and her now 7-year-old daughter left Bucha on March 8, and have been living in Warsaw since March 10.
Olga works at Jet Line, she is a photographer.

Photographs "Kindergarten. Bucha, February 2022" by Olga Maistrenko for a week on Jet Line digital screens in the 7 largest cities in Poland and on the Smart Citylight Warexpo network in Warsaw.

Olga's Instagram:

Ольга Майстренко (@olga_maistrenko_photographer) • Photos and videos on Instagram

More about MORE screens:

More advertising screens - DOOH, at bus stops and in shop windows, Warsaw, GOP - Jet Line