Sowing Seeds of Beauty: An Artist Resists War

A new art exhibition has been unveiled in Luther's Keffer Chapel: Sowing Seeds of Beauty: An Artist Resists War.



Ukrainian photographer and gardener Alla Olkhovska says that at night when the bombs are falling near her Kharkiv house, twenty miles from the front of the war, she thinks about her flowers as a means of survival. Alla grows rare clematis and peony species and sells the seeds internationally through her online community. She is also renowned for her photography: using a macro lens, her pictures bring an intimacy to a different kind of survival: that of the garden. ​



Curator Sherry Coman interacts with Alla's work to document how beauty can be a form of resistance to war. ​Using interview footage, Alla's own curated pictures and her books, as well as an interactive media station, viewers have the chance to discover how one urban garden in war time lives on in the world through countless seedlings now growing in many nations. ​



Against all odds, Alla has maintained hope in the face of unimaginable tragedy, capturing beauty amidst an ongoing war through her gardening and photography. 

"The photography of Alla Olkhovska has been appreciated by amateur and professional photographers for its skill. But the work is made more significant by its context: each of her photographs is made within a war zone, where active bombing takes place every day, and where it is a continuing miracle that Alla, her family, and the garden continue to survive," said Coman. 

While Alla's photography stands as a beautiful demonstration of artful resilience, it also serves as an understated form of opposition and rebellion. 



"Alla's photographs offer a contrast to the equally important strategy of marches and angry voices in looking for social change. By inviting us into still and quiet spaces of intense beauty, Alla's photography of her garden lifts up a different kind of resistance, one which describes a determination to endure and to flourish, despite all," Coman said. 

Sowing Seeds of Beauty is an exemplification of strength and serenity amidst adversity, providing inspiration for other artists to utilize their own creativity to combat opression.  



"My hope for the exhibition is that viewers will be inspired to make their own projects — whether by nurturing plant and garden life, or using their own creative gifts — to help generate their own spaces of resistance to injustice or to find peace from conflict. Most of us don't live in a war zone, but there are other injustices that we see around us. The smallest creative act contributes to a movement of courage and action," Coman said.  



The exhibit runs from May 1 - 20, Monday - Thursday, 12:00 - 4:30 p.m.