Veteran Programme Fellow 2026

Razom Relief - Winter-Spring 2026 1 January – 31 March 2026

Through his photographs, photographer and designer Mykola Hlibovych seeks to convey the world in all its multidimensionality and ambiguity. The project has a working title, Nice Pictures from Ukraine Despite the War, and every word in it matters. It is important that it is despite the war, not during the war, because life goes on, and there is a need to play with meanings; otherwise, our resilience alone, our desire for victory and for a return to a former life, are not enough — if only because such a return is impossible.

“My project is an attempt to see what remains after form disappears, and to prove that even abstraction can retain the memory of war.”
Mykola Hlibovych

Ostap Manuliak, a Lviv-based composer, created a cycle of musical works inspired by photographs of flowers taken during Hlibovych’s period of military service. These works were presented in concerts at the Jam Factory Art Center (Lviv, 2024), the Vox Electronica electroacoustic music festival (Lviv, 2023), and as part of EM-Visia (Kyiv, 2023).

“I want to present my works in a way that allows viewers to engage with them at their own pace, in one of Lviv’s exhibition spaces, hoping that these photographs will evoke more than just the thought, ‘that man takes nice pictures’. At the very least, I hope they convey a desire to see something beautiful, as if for the last time. I also hope that everyone will find something of their own in them — it is impossible to predict what they will mean to each individual viewer. The abstract nature of the photographs should appeal to both civilians and military personnel, and I would very much like it to help foster dialogue between them.”
Mykola Hlibovych

Mykola Hlibovych

Mykola Hlibovych is a web designer, photojournalist, photographer, and veteran. He graduated with a degree in Psychology from the Ivan Franko Lviv National University and trained as a psychoanalyst at the Lviv Psychoanalytic Institute of Mental Health. Alongside his studies, he drew comics, took photographs, and wrote articles on art for zbruc.eu.

He joined the military on the second day of the full-scale invasion, serving initially as a cook and later as a UAV operator in the 45th Separate Artillery Brigade, named after Myron Tarnavskyi. He was demobilised in June 2025 due to family circumstances.

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