Introduction and overview
Welcome to the Ukrainian History and Education Center's exhibition "Depicting Genocide: 20th Century Responses to the Holodomor"
This exhibition exists in both an in-person physical installation, and as this full-scale online version. The in-person version opened on June 4, 2023 and will remain on view through October 2023. If you find yourself within travelling range of our location in central New Jersey, we urge you to come and visit the physical exhibition: many of the artworks presented can only be fully appreciated by viewing them in person.
"Depicting Genocide" opens during the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor. It also opens as Russia continues its war of aggression against Ukraine, during which genocide is is yet again being perpetrated.
This exhibition explores some of the ways in which the Holodomor was depicted during the 20th century, particularly though art. The artistic depiction of genocide is challenging. Should horrors be depicted directly and graphically — with skeletons or dead bodies? Or should the approach be more understated, providing the viewers or readers with just enough to allow them to create the images of horror in their own minds? This exhibition explores the extremely varied approaches that artists over more than seven decades have used to tackle the Holodomor.
While many artists and writers were quick to create a substantial body of work about other genocides (such as the Holocaust), depictions of the Holodomor were remarkably sparse prior to the last decade of the 20th century. The Ukrainian History and Education Center is honored to have a significant number of these early works in its permanent collection, and this exhibition is built around those items. The exhibition also includes period primary sources that shed light on the Holodomor as a historical event, how it was portrayed in the press, and how Ukrainians in the diaspora responded to it.
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