PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Blurred Lives & 40 million bleeding sunflowers

By Marcel Grimard

Honor student in Visual Arts at Brock University, St Catharines, Ontario, Canada

Media outlets constantly shower us with information tidbits related to the war in Ukraine. As consumers, we take them in with the attention span necessary – a time slot comparable to the next one, on climate change, inflation, the latest celebrity divorce…

The flow of images doesn’t allow our brain to register the gravity, the human suffering or the scale of the war on the people in Ukraine. The longer the war continues, the more we become desensitized to it. We pass to the next item and go back to our busy lives.

The Ukrainian people cannot escape this war. The West’s timid response means that they are fighting the brutal Russian invasion by themselves. Until the war’s end, they will try to adapt by maintaining a somewhat normal life by celebrating weddings, births and other celebrations. With stoic determination, they will continue fighting, mourning their dead, and overcoming their fears.

In the West, any images showing the “normal lives” will be a justification reinforcing our beliefs that this issue can go on the back burner and will appease our fears that the third world war will not occur.