As I Wake, I Cry (2015) Photography Exhibition, CEPA Gallery, Buffalo, NY
https://www.cepagallery.org/exhibit-event/as-i-wake-i-cry-revisiting-ukraine-by-lukia-costello-2015/
As I Wake, I Cry: Revisiting Ukraine weaves together recent travel photos to Ukraine with family photos and cultural artifacts to reveal the emotional story of one artist’s road to cultural identification. This work is dedicated to the ‘Celestial 100′ who died at Euromaidan, the growing number of dead, wounded, and displaced, the many illegal prisoners of war, and the people of Russia – all suffering the effects of the illegal and undeclared Russian war in Ukraine.
This group of photographs were created during an August 2014 visit to Ukraine, 15 years after the artist’s first visit to the region. The calm pastorals and scenes of daily life offer a counterpoint to war front imagery and the propaganda that has sought to portray Western Ukraine and the city of Lviv in particular, as a hotbed of fascism. The title of this show relates to both the moment Lukia woke to realize that her Lviv bound train had crossed into Ukraine, as well as the many mornings before and since, as she followed Ukraine’s struggle for reinvention in the midst of a humanitarian crisis and war in its East.