"Again. Never. Again." Exhibition by Vlada Ralko and Volodymyr Budnikov. Barbara Baryżewska Studio, Poznan

Curator: Andriy Dostlev                                                                                                                                          

The 'Never Again' slogan was coined after WWII as a response to the previous atrocities of the Holocaust and the war itself. A simple and concise message, a memorial of the past and a reminder to future generations that they should do everything in their power for those horrors never to repeat again. It's been eighty years now since the end of WWII, and the mere fact that so many people now still are in urgent need to remind the world about this message — to publish texts, to give public speeches, to make images, to write poems (contrary to Adorno's predictions) — says something about us all. Something inherently sad, like, that maybe we have fucking failed as human beings.

Both Vlada Ralko's “Lviv Diary” and Volodymyr Budnikov's “Time of War” series were started in 2022, after the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as an immediate and inevitable response to the new level of horrors brought upon the Ukrainian population. The artists were meticulously noting down their emotional responses to the war, as so many artists before them did with the wars they had witnessed. Including the war after which this was supposed to happen 'never again.' And yet, here we are.

“It is the duty and conscience of an artist to speak own language. I make these drawings during the war because I don't want to be mute,” writes Vlada in the text accompanying her “Lviv Diary” series. “Russia is constantly raping the dictionary, because a Soviet person should not have his own words,” she adds, and Volodymyr continues in his text — “How to define the evil that tempts people until everything human in them dies?” They both search actively for the right words, definitions, and entire languages to speak about the new horrors happening every day — exactly the ones that 'Never Again' was supposed to protect from. An incredibly courageous but maybe also futile quest, yet still so hauntingly beautiful.

Andriy Dostlev, 2025