Review by Emilia Papadakis for TAZ, June 27, 2025 (in German) ⧉
Review by Christian Schröter, Karla Wagner Stiftung, April 9, 2025 (in German) ⧉
Interview with Nana Morozova for Amal, Berlin, April 11, 2025 (in Ukrainian) ⧉
Review by Valeriia Semeniuk for Tagesspiegel, Berlin, April 20, 2025 (in German) ⧉
Photobook in German and English, 2025, based on the long-term collaborative photoproject with teenagers ⧉ (press release below)
The Alphabet of War – Young Ukrainian People Tell Their Stories with Images and Words
The alphabet represents order, structure, and reliability. However, war destroys this world. It intruders into the lives of young people, shattering familiar routines and forcing them to flee. For displaced Ukrainian teenagers, this means that nothing remains as it was before, not even the language.
Under the guidance of artist Masha Pryven, a group of young people who fled to Berlin from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine reinterpreted the German alphabet. In an innovative project, 26 terms are staged in photographs and filled with personal thoughts. Each image, each written thought, is an attempt to document their own feelings and start a dialogue with the German public. The Alphabet of War is not only a creative testimony to personal experience of war and exile but also an invitation to explore the transformative power of language and images.
For purchase in Germany ⧉, in Austria ⧉. Or send an email to Masha Pryven ⧉.
8 teenagers — 2 years
26 photos — 26 letters of the German alphabet
3 years of the Russian invasion into Ukraine
26 attempts of Ukrainian teenagers to explain this war to adults
1 book — 3 covers
1 foreword as a dialogue between Yehor (co-leader of the project, 17 years old) and Masha Pryven
10 questions posed by teenagers to adults — 10 answers
1 conversation between Wendy Ewald and Masha Pryven — Who owns an alphabet?
Photos by Andrea Linß at the America Memorial Library (Amerika Gedenkbibliothek, ZLB). Performative book presentation