Synkroniciti is honored to welcome back Ukrainian photographer and writer Viktoriia Sorochuk for the fourth and final installment of a series of photo essays exploring her displacement from her homeland due to the war. “Diaries During Wartime Part Four: Light Making Its Way Through” is a gritty tale of recovery in the midst of darkness and war, when hope is murky and uncertain. Light makes it through, whether it is in the stories captured by the camera or the pen, or simply as idea of peace and safety in the human mind and heart. It is unstoppable, even when it is fragmented.
“When we put curtains on the windows in our yet another place to live, the next morning I saw that I could still see through them. They had created a chocolaty haze. I thought to myself that the obscurity they have brought to the daylight is an exact reflection of the obscurity in my own life. Before I could see my future with some degree of clarity; nowadays it’s all in fog. An optimist by nature, I do believe that everything will be fine, and by working hard and being persistent, we will get our lives back on track. But the realisation that there are hundreds of thousands of people who won’t be able to do it is slowly smoldering in my head, poisoning me from day to day.”
War weaves a web of destruction that touches friends and strangers, shaping lives that have not yet been born. The more uncertain things are, the more vital it becomes for people to dream and act in accordance with better visions. Tyrants can’t reach those visions and they can’t quite stamp them out either.
“A friend told me recently that recovery is not a finished state; it also encompasses the moment when you are very far from it, but are still willing to talk, to reflect, and not to give up. I think he is very right about this, and I want to believe that millions and millions of Ukrainians feel the same way. I want to believe that we are not ready to give up, even if the whole world thinks that we should.”
We join her in the hope for a world safe from tyrants and long for the day when Ukrainians are free and safe in their homeland.
Read “Light Making Its Way Through” in Synkroniciti’s “Recovery” issue, available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
My name is Viktoriia Sorochuk, and my superpower is—well, I am Ukrainian: I can cook a three-course meal even if my fridge is empty, make my husband nervous with just one phrase “Honey, we need to talk” and use Latin quotes just for the sake of making people look at me with round eyes.
While studying at school I hated writing essays. It was total torture for me and now I write with great pleasure. The best part is that others like to read what I write. As a kid I tried to learn watercolours but since I wasn’t patient enough today my best friend is a DSLR camera. The result is somewhat instant unless I forget to charge its battery or insert the memory card.
I love dogs, good music and good visual art.