Shortly after the start of Russia's war against Ukraine in February 2022, Berlin-based artist Mila Teshaieva travelled to her hometown Kyiv. Her diary, first published on the internet platform dekoder.org, contains personal records of the first months of the war in words and images.

From the first days of the war, when Russian troops encircled Kyiv and people fled in panic, to the last days of April, when the overwhelming consequences of war crimes were discovered in the region around the capital Kyiv, Mila Teshaieva documents life during the war, marked by destruction as well as unity and resistance.

The Artist Mila Teshaieva

Mila Teshaieva was born and raised in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 1974. She has lived in Berlin since 2010. Teshaieva uses photography, video and text in long-term projects to describe the tension between individual and collective identity. Her works are exhibited in museums worldwide and are represented in several public collections. Teshaieva's comprehensive exhibition of works Imagined Community was shown at the MIT Museum in Boston in 2018‒19. She has been a member of Agentur Ostkreuz since 2016.

The exhibition is funded by the Kuratorium Preussischer Kulturbesitz.