Bright sunlight filters through a cheerful green curtain onto a chaotic room, with a bunk bed against one wall. Immediately, you know two things: children sleep here and their world is in a mess. The curtains are printed with cartoons of a little girl in red and a big brown bear. They’re from Masha and the Bear, explains the photographer Miguel Gutiérrez. It’s a Russian animation that paradoxically uses the adventures of a girl and a bear to teach values such as respect, and the importance of care and integration between children and adults.
The photograph was taken in the Ukrainian village of Rozhivka, near Kyiv, in the home of a farming family, says Gutiérrez. “They said that while they were sleeping, they were attacked. They did not understand what was happening, because they do not live in a military or strategic zone; they only understood that they needed shelter. The artillery hit the back yard and the ceiling of their home, affecting the children’s bedroom.”
