Exhibition of Ukrainian Artist, Killed in Russian Airstrike, Opens in Iceland

An exhibition of works by Ukrainian artist from Kharkiv Nika Kozhushko, who died at the age of 18 during a Russian airstrike on Kharkiv on 30 August 2024, has opened in Iceland.

This was announced by the organiser of the event, Nika's friend Kateryna Ilchenko, a Kyiv resident who has been living and working in Akureyri since the beginning of the full-scale Russian war, Ukrinform reports. 

The organisers received some of the works from Nika's father, some from friends, and some the artist had sent to her friend in Iceland earlier.

‘This idea came to me immediately after I saw Nika's last video, with which she wanted to launch her new project with journalists from the Czech Republic about artists killed by Russia,’ Ilchenko said. ’In that video, Nika says how many voices will never speak again. A few days after the filming, she died.’

The organisers supplemented the video with a story about Nika and her work, edited different episodes, and the result is a 12-minute film that is shown at the exhibition alongside the drawings.

 ‘I wanted Nika's voice to be heard even here, in the north of Iceland,’ she said. “It is important for me to tell Icelanders that the Russian war against Ukraine is aimed not only at our sovereignty, but also at our identity, originality, culture, art, and everything that defines us as Ukrainians,” says Kateryna Ilchenko, a friend of the deceased artist Nika.

According to the organiser of the event, the artistic community of Akureyri immediately supported the idea of the exhibition. The space in the Deiglan art space was provided free of charge, and there was no cost for printing Nika's works. Local media published a story about the event.

The exhibition will run until 9 March.