EXHIBITION: “YOU DIDN’T IMAGINE IT, YOU WILL STAY FOREVER”

OPENING: 19/09/2026, 18.00

Dnipro Center for Contemporary Culture will host the opening of the exhibition “You Didn’t Imagine It, You Will Stay Forever”—a reflection on landscapes and people in the fragile moment when war remains behind us, and on a memory that will not fade.

“You Didn’t Imagine It, You Will Stay Forever” is a poetic meditation on what the landscape, time, and human relationships will be like when air raids cease and the post-war period begins. It explores expectation, solitude, and what grows in their place when all of this disappears, leaving behind only the memory of familiar landscapes, native homes, and close people—a trace bearing witness to the presence of a complex history in everyone’s life.

“Exhibitions often speak to the viewer by explaining complex concepts and relationships. I wanted this exhibition to be somewhat different. After all, how do you explain emptiness, loss, pain, prolonged waiting, anxiety, homesickness, the joy of meeting those we could not meet and who seemed might never return, or how do you illustrate love that does not fade? Which of all these feelings and states is the most important to speak about here and now, and which is worth carrying along and not forgetting?

That is why I wanted this exhibition to create a condition where viewers’ personal feelings stand side by side with the exposition and speak in unison with the artworks presented. They will speak primarily to the viewers themselves about who they are,” shares exhibition curator Kateryna Iakovlenko.

Through images, narratives, and stories, Kateryna Iakovlenko invites viewers to reflect on what their ideal day would be like—a day with no more war.

Anna Zvyagintseva’s work “My Shirt” transforms into a unique shelter-space, inviting the viewer to imagine the body in a safe, cozy environment. Elena Subach’s photographs from the “Hidden” series capture Ukrainian monuments and sculptures conserved and protected from danger following the start of the full-scale invasion. Conversely, Lubomyr Sikach’s glass hammers are stripped of their primary function: objects that should symbolize repair and restoration become fragile themselves and require protection.

Denys Pankratov’s installation “Hlodyny” (The Starving Ones) explores a space where branches and trees best convey the states of society during times of choice. Anna Taradina’s copper “Branch” emerges as the image of a sprout breaking through accumulated problems and worries. Lubomyr Sikach’s work “Summer Kitchen” engages with the memory of a person through what remains, much like Dasha Kolomiiets, whose work “Dust Under My Bed” creates perhaps the most precise portrait of the artist. In Dasha Chechushkova’s works “Guide Before Confession” and “Ordinary People (What Could Form the Commandments of a Civilian),” one can observe a society that chooses the path of remembrance and plants the landscape of the future today.

In Anna Taradina’s performance, one can witness the strength with which a person copes with limitations and dangers, even while becoming a part of that danger themselves. The hall is concluded by Stanislav Turina’s poetry series “Ideal Days,” in which the artist imagines what his life will be like after the war.

The title of the exhibition is borrowed from a fragment of Lubomyr Sikach’s work “Summer Kitchen.”

Curator: Kateryna Iakovlenko.

Artists: Anna Zvyagintseva, Dasha Kolomiiets, Denys Pankratov, Lubomyr Sikach, Elena Subach, Anna Taradina, Stanislav Turina, and Dasha Chechushkova.

The exhibition will be on view through December 19 inclusive, 2nd floor, DCCC exhibition space. Admission is free.

The exhibition is part of the capacity-building and networking program for local cultural actors “Heritage: Space for Work”.