Exhibition of icons painted on ammunition boxes inaugurated in Moldovan capital

Chisinau, 22 February /MOLDPRES/ - An exhibition titled, Icons painted on ammunition boxes, today was inaugurated at the National History Museum of Moldova. The event was organized by the Polish Institute from Bucharest and the host institution, in partnership with the Embassy of Poland in Chisinau and with the support of the Embassy of Ukraine in Moldova.  

Attending the event were Culture Minister Sergiu Prodan, Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Poland to Moldova Tomasz Kobzdej, Ambassador of Ukraine to Moldova Marko Shevchenko, Ambassador of Lithuania to Moldova Tadas Valionis, culture and art people.   

According to the deputy director of the institution, moderator of the exhibition Livia Ermurache, the collection presented in Chisinau contains 25 unique icons by Ukrainian artists Olexander Klymenko and Sonia Atlantova. Among these icons, there are also new works, painted on ammunition boxes used during the current invasion of Russian against Ukraine.    

Contacted by MOLDPRES, Olexander Klymenko said the project combined two aspects, which, at the first blush, are impossible to approach in unitary way: the icon and the ammunition box, death and life. ‘’Through our works, we want to transform the death, the symbol of which is the ammunition box, symbolized traditionally in the Ukrainian culture of icon. These icons travelled in the world, and so far, they have been exhibited in 20 countries and in 150 places, including at the European Parliament,’’ Olexander Klymenko said. In the context, Sonia Atlantova said that, in 2014, as a response to the first military aggression of Russia against Ukraine, they had started painting icons on ammunition boxes. This so original and expressive approach has had a quite strong impact on the public from the very beginning.   

In his speech, Culture Minister Sergiu Prodan offered thanks to the organizers of this extremely symbolical and extremely deep exhibition, as the idea to combine the boxes for ammunition and the icons painted on them, besides art, have an extraordinary message of raising our everybody’s awareness. ‘’We got used, from the tales with which we were brought up in the childhood, after watching films, reading books, to the fact that the good will eventually win. This is not quite like this in the daily life. In the life, the good, unfortunately, is subjected to a high risk and must prove sacrifice, so that the victory in the film should be hardly proved. This exhibition tells us about the fact that we cannot attend as simple spectators and wait for the good to win. We have been witnessing this massacre taking place in Ukraine. We cannot attend as mere spectators when our Ukrainian neighbours will finally win. Our everybody’s duty is to do our utmost for the good to be able to defend itself and the victory should become reality,’’ Minister Sergiu Prodan said.       

The main goal of the Ukrainian artists is to sell the icons and the sum collection will be donated on charity purposes to people hit by the war, but especially in order to help the First Mobile Volunteer Hospital, where more than 60,000 patients have been treated since 2014 till present. According to Klymenko, 97 per cent of the costs of the hospital’s work were covered from the sale of icons. The artists back from the funds got from the sale of works also the medical society of the Brigade 114 Territorial Defence and the project, The Wings of Victory, through which the wounded soldiers are helped.     

The exhibition will be opened till 10 March.