Artist and teacher Nadiya Vaganova presented a pop-up exhibition of children’s work during celebrations for Ukraine’s Independence Day in Brussels, showing drawings, portraits and a collaborative textile piece made in her studio in Shchaslyve, Kyiv region.
The project began in 2022 as Russian forces advanced near the area; Vaganova gathered local children in a basement and used a projector to screen cartoons and run structured activities during air-raid alerts. It has since grown into a semi-basement studio with regular classes.
Vaganova said the studio now works with 47 children, with several joining online from other parts of Ukraine. She documents lessons and preparations for public showings. For the Brussels event, she transported a modular aluminium display frame built by her husband while on military leave, and the children prepared captions to accompany their works.
The centrepiece was an interpretation of Picasso’s Guernica, (main picture), assembled from patterned headscarves donated by families in Shchaslyve and neighbouring settlements. Vaganova said the scarves included those worn by her grandmother, who was a child during the Second World War. The piece, rendered in colour and completed in about six weeks, links an earlier generation’s experience of conflict with that of children in the Kyiv region today. It was shown alongside individual works by pupils as young as two.
Several pictures reflected bereavement. Vaganova said that days after she agreed to bring works to Brussels, the father of a five-year-old pupil was killed at the front.
The younger child painted a portrait of her father; an older sibling produced a portrait of their mother. The two were hung side by side at the exhibition “as a family reunited”, she said.
Other works referenced displacement from frontline regions, blackouts and time spent in shelters.
A small dog called Baka has become the studio mascot and appears in a number of drawings. Vaganova said her husband, who serves in the armed forces, rescued the animal as a puppy despite leg problems and nursed it to health. The youngest pupils coined the name by shortening the Ukrainian word for dog, sobaka, to the final syllables they could pronounce. The animal cannot bark and is anxious around loud urban sounds, but remains a familiar presence during classes.
Vaganova’s husband serves on the front line and is a metal artist in civilian life. Their daughter, now two, has seen her father only a handful of times in two years.
Vaganova said such separation is common in her community and influences the subjects children choose.
Alerts and travel disruptions require flexible attendance; some pupils alternate between in-person and online participation depending on local security conditions.
Support for the studio has come from individuals in Ukraine and abroad. Svitlana Lebiga, President of the Cultural Center of Ukraine in Belgium (CCUB), has been involved with Vaganova’s work since 2022 and helped to arrange the Brussels presentation.
Lebiga also donated a projector to the studio in Shchaslyve, which now enables full-wall screenings of animations. Vaganova said the children design the posters themselves and run a weekly film session on Mondays, funding popcorn and art materials as resources allow.
Lebiga said early conversations with pupils underlined the project’s purpose. When asked why the war was happening, many of the children replied that they did not know.
The studio, she added, aims to give attention to each child and to provide a routine through classes and small public showings.
The Brussels display revisited themes developed since 2022, when Vaganova and colleagues first set up an improvised “basement cinema” in the village of Prolisky, near Kyiv. That initiative, created to give children a safe and structured space, evolved into the current studio in Shchaslyve. One pupil now continues lessons online after relocating within Ukraine; others travel from nearby villages. Attendance is adjusted around alerts, blackouts and transport.
Vaganova said the Independence Day showing was assembled specifically for Brussels. The children followed the route to Belgium on a map and prepared labels and notes for each piece. The modular frame was designed to be erected and taken down quickly. She has recorded the build-up and intends to share the material with families who could not travel.
Asked about future plans, Vaganova said she intends to expand the initiative after the war into an Academy of Children’s Art in Kyiv. The concept envisages large studio spaces, a gallery and craft workshops, including metalwork taught with her husband’s involvement. The academy would accept children from across Ukraine and retain online access for those who have relocated. For now, the studio in Shchaslyve continues to operate with volunteer support and donated equipment.
At the close of the Brussels event, visitors were invited to take photographs in front of the headscarf Guernica and to visit the studio in Shchaslyve. Vaganova said the objective in bringing the display to Belgium was to ensure that children working under wartime conditions were seen and heard beyond their village. “The children are in Ukraine, in their village,” she said. “They have the right to paint and the right to live.”
