Medium of Instruction

• Photographer
  Alena Grom
• Photo Date
  Summer 2022

In 2022, Russian troops occupied part of the Kyiv region. As a result of the fighting, the infrastructure of cities was destroyed. Due to the bombing and shelling, 2102 educational institutions of Ukraine were damaged. Of these, 215 are completely destroyed. Man-made objects, as well as natural objects used in the educational process as carriers of educational information and tool for the activities of the educator and students to achieve the goals of education, upbringing and development — medium of instruction.

Ukrainian artist and documentary photographer Alena Grom was born in Donetsk. In April 2014, she was forced to leave her hometown due to the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. Since 2017, she has lived in Bucha near Kyiv. After Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, Grom and her family became refugees twice but returned after Bucha was de-occupied. Her experiences deeply influence her work, which captures the resilience of life amid war, focusing on victims, migrants, and refugees, at the intersection of social reporting and conceptual photography.