Mykola Hlibovych's photo exhibition «Cute Pictures Despite the War»

We invite you to Mykola Hlibovych’s photo exhibition, “Cute Pictures Despite the War.” Mykola is a resident of the INDEX Veteran Programme (supported by RAZOM), a designer and veteran who works with photography and comics.

The exhibition is a series of photo stories that the veteran describes as an attempt to capture a few beautiful megapixels, because the pixel he was given wasn’t created to be beautiful.

On the second day of the full-scale invasion, I joined the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, first as a cook, then as a UAV operator. I started taking photos of flowers in the spring of 2023 near Bakhmut. We were conducting reconnaissance, directing artillery fire, and waiting for the order to take off—whenever the cannon would be ready, or the weather would be right. I stepped away to take a leak and took a photo of a bud. The following day same thing happened. I ended up with a series of 8 or 9 buds, which opened up more and more each day. Then we waited for the order to take off, and while my comrades were scrolling TikTok, I walked across the field looking for poppies and sunflowers that caught my eye. My comrades later asked if I was interested in botany. Not really.
Mykola Hlibovych

— Exhibition opening on 1 March at 3 pm

— Lviv, Municipal Art Center, 11 Stefanyka Street

— The exhibition will run from 1 March to 31 March 2026. Admission is free

Mykola Hlibovych is a web designer, photojournalist, photographer and veteran. He graduated in psychology from the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv and trained as a psychoanalyst at the Lviv Psychoanalytic Institute of Mental Health. In addition, he drew comics and took photographs, and wrote articles on art for zbruc.eu. He joined the army on the second day of the full-scale invasion, initially as a cook, then as a UAV operator in the 45th Airborne Brigade named after Myron Tarnavskyi. He was demobilised in June 2025 due to family circumstances.

He is a co-author of the audiovisual project ‘Reflections and Interludes’ (July 2023 – June 2025) — a cycle of musical works composed by Ostap Manulyak, inspired by Hlibovych’s abstract photographs of flowers taken during his military service, particularly in the combat zone in the Donetsk region. The works were presented alongside the photographs at concerts in Lviv in August 2023 and September 2024, and in Kyiv in October 2023.

For more information about Mykola’s project as part of the Veteran Programme, follow the link.