Webster Library Exhibitions

UKRAINE: NO FILTER

April 1 – June 30, 2026

Webster Library, LB-2 vitrines and Discovery Counter

This exhibition is curated by Olha Holovko (Club Ukrainien de Montréal) and Olya Zikrata (FRQ Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Communication, SFU; Affiliate, Center for Sensory Studies, Concordia).

UKRAINE: NO FILTER brings together selected works from four projects – Books Destroyed by Russia, Unissued Diplomas, 4th Block: Chornobyl, and As For Now, It Is Quiet / Listen Live – to confront the cultural, material, environmental, and human cost of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine.

What is at stake in this war is not only territorial expansion, but the destruction of Ukrainian statehood and the erasure of Ukrainian culture and identity. Russia targets universities, publishing houses, and cultural institutions. It claims the lives of Ukrainian students and scholars, burns archives and library collections, and attacks the very spaces where knowledge and memory are created and preserved.

Books Destroyed by Russia presents books destroyed in the 2024 Russian strike on the Factor-Druk printing house in Kharkiv, which killed seven and injured 22 employees. More than 100,000 books, including children’s literature intended for classrooms, were incinerated. Since then, over 200 million books have been destroyed across Ukraine. The exhibition extends beyond this single site to trace the wider devastation of Ukrainian cultural infrastructure, including the destruction of 214 libraries and damage to more than 858 others, as Russian attacks continue to escalate.

Unissued Diplomas, a commemorative exhibition launched by students at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kyiv, honors Ukrainian students who will never graduate. Their diplomas remain unissued because they were killed in classrooms or on the frontlines defending their country against Russian aggression.

4th Block: Chornobyl, an international poster triennial founded by Chornobyl disaster liquidator Oleh Veklenko from Kharkiv, highlights the continuity of Russian imperial violence – from the militarization of Chornobyl to attacks on Ukraine’s current nuclear facilities as part of a deliberate strategy of nuclear terror.

As For Now, It Is Quiet / Listen Live, a collective audio stream project presented in two iterations, guides listeners through the soundscapes of everyday life in wartime Ukraine. Its latest title references announcements of temporary safety after the Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities.

UKRAINE: NO FILTER insists on uncompromising witnessing. It invites audiences to confront Russia’s war against Ukraine as an assault on the foundations of academic and cultural life. Ukrainian universities, libraries, publishing houses, and cultural institutions are part of the global intellectual ecosystem. By targeting them, Russia undermines the networks of knowledge, memory, and culture that connect all of us.

In presenting the documentation of Ukrainian environments, whether through visual, sonic, or archival traces, this exhibition makes the consequences of violence tangible. It urges audiences to recognize the stakes of Russian aggression. Looking without a filter may be uncomfortable, but looking away would mean ignoring a system of violence that will only extend its reach unless it is firmly and collectively confronted.

The exhibition, presented in collaboration with Club Ukrainien de Montréal, features a Terra Invicta book talk by Dr. Adrian Ivakhiv and a conversation with him at Concordia as part of its programming.

Related events

Book Talk by Dr. Adrian Ivakhiv
Date/time: April 22, 2026, 5:30–7 p.m.
Location: McGill University, Arts Building, Room 160, 853 Sherbrooke Street West

What do climate change, genocide, and ecocide have to do with each other? Perspectives from the Russo-Ukrainian War
Conversation between Adrian Ivakhiv and curator Olya Zikrata
Date/time: April 23, 2026,12–2 p.m.
Location: SHIFT Centre, J.W. McConnell Building LB-145, Concordia University