‘I hope my ex has been killed by a rocket,” says one message. “I feel ashamed that I miss my cats more than my own dad,” writes somebody else. “I want to kill my father for his Soviet beliefs,” confesses a third. “I can’t wank,” confides one person. Another: “I wank every day.” And someone else: “I want to have amazing sex before the nuclear strike, but in two months, I haven’t had the emotional resources to even open Tinder.”
These intimate confessions are displayed on a wall of the Jam Factory, an elegant arts centre in the city of Lviv in western Ukraine that has, improbably, opened in the thick of Russia’s invasion. They are taken from a collection of anonymous wartime “secrets” that artist Bohdana Zaiats collated using an online Google form, and posted on Instagram. Each provides a fleeting insight into the most private, unsayable thoughts of Ukrainians reeling from the heartbreak and dislocation brought about by war.
