SCARS ACROSS
UKRAINE
War poisons both the physical reality and symbolic representations of space.
Leaving behind nothing but ashes and rusted ruins, slowly digested by wounded earth.
“Scars Across Ukraine,” Daniel Beltrá’s photographic project born from his two journeys across Ukraine between 2023 and 2024, casts a harsh light on the wounds inflicted by war.
Renowned for his aerial photography and passionate commitment to the environment, the Spanish artist works for the first time at the heart of an armed conflict-the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Upon arrival, armed with official authorizations, he confronts the harsh realities of a nation under martial law: curfews, travel restrictions, omnipresent checkpoints, and the sudden prohibition of his drone usage. Grounded, deprived of the altitude that has always guided his gaze, he abruptly finds himself facing a society wounded in both flesh and soil.
Forced to shift his perspective, Daniel now focuses on observing the details and stigmata of war. Shattered windows of residential buildings, houses reduced to shells, craters dug by shells, forests blackened by flames-all become lines, textures, and materials in the vocabulary of violence.
Through his lens, ruins transform into shapes, forming a brutal, imposed language -abstract yet profoundly real. His images tell the story of the heavy silence of the physical and mental void left in the wake of combat.
With Daniel Beltrá’s “Scars Across Ukraine,” Ukrainian land is no longer simply the backdrop for the human dramas caused by war; it is both witness and mirror to the suffering of its people. This humanized earth, marked by the seal of endured scars, thus takes form differently. Transformed by war, the entire territory of the country embodies the cries of the nation.
A land that becomes flesh, memory, and resistance, reminding us that every wound inflicted on the country is an attack against the soul of a people-and that even wounded, the soul of Ukraine persists in echo.
We wish to express our gratitude to the Embassy of Spain in Ukraine and the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, who provided support for the realization of this project.
This exhibition was made possible thanks to the initiative and decisive support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation of Spain, the AECID (Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation), and the Embassy of Spain in Ukraine.
The project is the result of the creative work by the photographer Daniel Beltra, whose committed gaze captures the depth of the environmental scars left by the war, in close collaboration with Igor Ouvaroff, who oversaw the artistic direction, curation, and scenography.
