In honor of National Newspaper Week, I would like to pretend I am your professor. Your assignment this week is as follows:
–Visit Roberta’s Gallery where the exhibit “The Wall: Witness to the War in Ukraine” will be shown until Oct. 20.
–Read the biography of artist Iva Sidash.
–Take as long as you like to spend some time with the photographs. They are fragments of Iva’s and Ukraine’s reality.
Read the historical timeline and at least one poem by Lesia Ukrainka or from other poets at the reading table. There will be no quiz. No notes need be taken. I have always thought of her as Iva the Brave. AT 28 years old, she is closer in age to all of you than to me. She had never photographed war before or aspired to be a war photographer. But on the day the war began in February 2022, she made a choice that while she was alive or as long as the full-scale war lasted, she would use her pictures to tell the story of what is happening in Ukraine. And that is what photojournalists do, whether they work for newspapers, websites or any form of trustworthy non-digitally-altered media. And there are many trustworthy storytellers out there. Don’t let anyone tell you there are not. But it is up to you to pay attention and to find them. If you read the newspaper you are holding now or viewing on your screen, you will know more about this campus than you did before. Newspapers inform and newspapers build community. Newspapers unite us more than they divide us. Sometimes, there are difficult truths that need telling. Journalists and photojournalists are willing to pay a price. They are willing to accept that responsibility. That is what Iva is doing. And so, please visit Roberta’s Gallery. It is at the crossroads of this university, in the lobby of the University Center. There’s a story in there, about a country and about a Ukrainian photographer who has more of a commitment than there is space here to tell. Thank you for attending class today. Be well and be safe. Each and every one of you matters to this community. Class dismissed.