Alina Sarnatska's photo exhibition "Connected" about sparrows and homeless women

We invite you to the photography exhibition ‘Connected’, co-created by Alina Sarnatska, a resident of the INDEX Veteran Programme, at the Lviv Mobility Center.
This exhibition combines documentary photography and scientific data to ask: what happens to living beings when social ties are severed? And how do individual components influence complex systems?

At the heart of the exhibition lies a parallel between homeless women and the sparrow, a species historically dependent on human settlements. Both groups cannot survive when the connections with the environment that should sustain them are destroyed.

The visual component is built around close-ups of the hands of homeless women and sparrows — living beings that adapt to the urban environment on a daily basis. The photographs were taken with the support of "Club Eney" — a non-governmental organisation that provides assistance to women.

The exhibition’s scientific section features maps, photographs, and short texts on sparrow behaviour — specifically on the mechanisms of acceptance and rejection within flock structures and the impact of modern cities on birds.

The project was initiated by Alina Sarnatska — PhD, sociologist and veteran — as part of the INDEX Veteran Programme, with the support of RAZOM FOR UKRAINE and the assistance of the "Club Eney" Foundation.

— Lviv Mobility Center, 24 Stepan Bandera Street (entrance from Starosolskikh Street, 1st floor)

— Exhibition opening on 27 February at 6.00 pm (free admission)

— A curator-led tour by Alina Sarnatska and Hanna Kuzio begins at 18:30

The exhibition will run from 27 February 2026 to 28 March 2026.

Alina Sarnatska (Kyiv, Ukraine) is a writer, radio host, PhD in social work and war veteran. From March 2022 to July 2024, Alina Sarnatska served as a combat medic in the infantry. Before the full-scale invasion, she worked in the civil society sector, pursued doctoral studies, and wrote texts.

In 2025, she was a Jean-Jacques Rousseau Fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany. That same year, she was a finalist for the Aurora Drama Award (Poland), received two awards at the ATYPOWO Festival in Wrocław, and won the Drama.ua competition (Ukraine). In 2024, she was awarded the Lipnevyi Med Prize and the Week of Contemporary Plays Prize (both in Ukraine), and held a VILNO fellowship (Other Education / Robert Bosch Stiftung). In 2022, she founded Teplonosiї, a charitable organization.

For more information about Sarnatska's work as part of the Veteran Programme, follow the link.