“These ‘eyes’ speak to the necessity to pause, to reflect, to turn to oneself and look at the world guided by one’s own feeling” – and this is why these “windows to the soul” are at the center of the installation EYES | OCHI, which was created in a small village near the city of Lviv in 2016.

There, in a space called “Prostir RaDity” ("Room of Children's Joy"), numerous children find board and shelter during the weeks of summer, which gives them a chance to face up to the traumatic ramifications of the war in Ukraine. Founded in 2015, following the annexation of Crimea and the start of the war in the Donbas, it has become a fixture and a point of reflection. “Prostir RaDity” is supervised by psychotherapists, artists, musicians, philosophers and other to address the external and internal injuries and dangers of war.

In the photo installation EYES | OCHI in the Showroom Berggasse 19, we are confronted with a richly layered kaleidoscope of children’s gazes, and with their struggle for a better future. During World War II, Anna Freud, child analyst and youngest daughter of Sigmund Freud, also addressed the question of coping strategies after the experience of war – of how much states of anxiety and particularly the loss of (psychological) parents affect children’s psyches. October 9, 2022, is the 40^th anniversary of her death, which is why the Sigmund Freud Museum dedicates the presentation of EYES | OCHI to her memory and to her important work Young children in war-time: a year’s work in a residential war nursery (first published in 1942).

“Prostir RaDity” needs your support!

Just like Anna Freud when she founded her war nurseries in London, psychoanalysts and psychotherapists like Yuliya Vynnytska, Mykola Vynnytskyy, Artem Petrytskyi and Oleksandr Filts in Ukraine today are trying to maintain a place that enables rehabilitation for the youngest victims of acts of war, beyond their everyday, past and present suffering. Therefore, we would also like to ask you to support the project “Prostir RaDity” for the protection of children traumatized by the war in Ukraine with your donation!

All donations will be handed over to the project leaders from the Austrian donations account:

Account: Ukraine Projekt, account holders: K. Günther, E. Trappl

Bank: Österreichische Ärzte und Apotheker Bank AG, Spitalgasse 31, 1090 Wien

IBAN: AT71 1813 0420 0382 1500

BIC: BWFBATW1XXX

Please indicate the following reason for transfer: RaDity

EYES | OCHI
Photo installation
Showroom Berggasse 19
October 9, 2022 until October 15, 2023

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