Kharkiv’s shattered landscapes: observations from the front line of the war in Ukraine

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Ukrainian city of Kharkiv has witnessed terrible destruction during the war with Russia. Many of its inhabitants have fallen victim to enemy shelling. Hundreds of objects and many urban areas turned into ruins. However, the destroyed private houses, high-rises, and even entire neighbourhoods in Kharkiv demonstrate that architecture lives even when it has been involuntarily abandoned, isn’t used, and isn’t experienced sensually, but is a part of complex systems of things, feelings, and communities. This work focuses on how damaged urban objects and places are being mourned, and how and where new ecological landscapes are being created. To answer these questions, the author went to the damaged places in Kharkiv (the city centre, residential areas, markets, memorials, and the subway) as a clean-up volunteer. Data collection was carried out from April to June 2022. The collected data are considered in the optics of posthumanism, with equal attention to the fragments of concrete, brick walls, broken glass, people and shell craters.