From 24 January to 24 February 2023, the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw is inviting participants to a guest exhibition of the Ukrainian art project ArtArmor.

‘ArtArmor is a unique project in which art not only figuratively but literally saves lives,’ emphasises the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in its information about the event. It was initiated and organised last October by the volunteer movement ‘Ukraine for Heroes’.

“With the help of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, volunteers found real armour plates from bulletproof vests that had been used in battle, stopped enemy bullets and shrapnel and saved the most precious thing – the lives of our Heroes”, says the project website.

At the launch of the event in Ukraine, the country’s Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said that the genius of the project lies in the fact that real armour plates are taken away from the real military, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the border guards or the National Guard and given a second life, because they reach people who make a work of art out of it.

Well-known Ukrainian artists: Tiberiy Szilvashi, Nazar Bilyk, Petro Bevza, Bludov Andrei, Yuri Vakulenko, Liosha Say, Svetlana Ratoshnyuk, Anton Logov, Leonid Kolodnitsky, transformed used bulletproof vests that saved the lives of Ukrainian soldiers into 12 unique works of art with a unique story. Thanks to this creative procedure, the plates will save lives for a second time.

This is because the funds from the sale of the works on display will be donated to the purchase of new personal protection equipment for the Ukrainian military. They will include bulletproof vests, helmets, headphones, gloves, goggles and suits for sappers.

Adrian Andrzejewski