Photo Exhibition “Children Under an Open Sky”

A photo exhibition dedicated to homeless orphans. The two-week exhibition featured more than 35 works from 5 different Luhansk photographers: professional photographers Nikolay Sidorov, Katerina Motalova, and Pavel Khaylo, as well as amateur photographers Galina Boldysheva and Alexei Bida. These are photos of children, clients of the Children's human rights centre, photos of their life, of their housing that is not adequate for inhabiting, which provides shelter for graduates of specialized educational institutions. The exhibition opening was accompanied by a performance that symbolized the homeless orphans. Guests were treated to brown bread and water. During the opening of the exhibition participants commented on the subject. Nikolay Sidorov: "The theme of orphans is harsh topic. For me it is important to understand the psychology of the kids, who are divided into two categories. The first category of children are purposeful, who want to achieve something in life, and the second group of children are indifferent to their future". Galina Boldireva:"When you're good, you don't think that there are children that are better and more talented than you, but in reality there are many that are less well off than you. I really want them to have a happy childhood and a future." Oleksiy Bida: "This exhibition is for me personally an attempt to force local authorities to think not only about careerism, but about the children". The exhibition was preceded by a campaign to protect housing rights of orphaned children under the walls of the Luhansk Oblast StateAdministration, and was called "City of Children". The photo exhibition was organized with support of Fund "Revival" and the human rights centre "Postup".