Student's art project a powerful statement on war

“How much of Australia would you give up? How much of Adelaide would you be OK with being bombed?”

They are the questions posed by Year 12 student Anton Slobodian as part of his SACE Stage 2 Visual Arts – Design major project.

“These questions should be absurd,” Anton continued. “But for Ukraine, they are not. War is not a distant horror. It is a present reality.”

Anton’s project – War at Home – challenges his audience to confront global conflict through a local lens.

The incredibly powerful piece consists of three layers – the first depicting Adelaide as a war-torn city, the second a series of laser-cut fabric panels and the third a touch-sensitive projector that brings the entire project to life.

“The final design shows silhouetted soldiers standing in front of the Adelaide Railway Station, their figures dark and unmoving,” Anton said.

“I chose this imagery to represent the haunting presence of war … how it stands watch over the familiar.”

The fabric panels feature three phrases – Za Ukrayiny (For Ukraine), Za Narod (For the People) and Za Volyu (For Freedom) and incorporates the names of bombed Ukrainian cities and soldiers lost to war.

As well as making a bold statement on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Anton’s installation also recognised another sad chapter of Ukrainian history.

“I have those soldiers in green, and they’re sort of distorted as well, which shows the radiation from Chernobyl and the effects of that as well,” Anton said.

The installation is interactive thanks to the use of a movement-sensitive projector.

Anton’s mother, Luda Boujenko, was an 11-year-old living in Ukraine when the No. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded in 1986.

She and her family lived in the fallout zone for the next six years, battling near-constant illness, before her parents decided to move to Australia for a better life.

“My parents decided to migrate because they knew people were dying from tumours, cancers and I was getting quite ill from radioactive fallout,” Ms Boujenko said.

“Everyone in my class had blood noses every day and it became so routine. Every classroom had a nurse on standby.

“So, we lived in that space for six years and had to leave everything behind to come to Australia. But we were lucky. We came here. Other people were not so lucky.”

Year 12 student Anton Slobodian with his piece, *War at Home*.

Ms Boujenko was proud of her son’s commitment to telling the many and varied stories of the Ukrainian people.

“He’s been exploring his Ukrainian identity for the last couple of years,” Ms Boujenko said of her son, who last year received a Merit for his Year 12 Language and Culture – Ukrainian studies.

“He genuinely wants to learn and he’s done a lot of other projects for Ukrainian community.”

Anton also worked with the Ukrainian Museum and Ukrainian Women’s Association in South Australia, of which his grandmother Irena Boujenko was President, to help shape his piece.

He was “thrilled” with the final design.

“The design became personal. It made me realise that war is never just somewhere else; it could change everything I know, just as it has for so many in Ukraine.”

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