Anastasiia Klysakova

This thesis reflects on writing poetry during the full-scale war in Ukraine, tracing how displacement, trauma, and multilingual identity shape artistic practice. Poetry emerges as both expression and therapy: fragile letters across languages and borders, transforming overwhelming emotions into structured narratives and reclaiming identity against colonization. It situates war poetry within refugee, civilian, and military perspectives, forming a collective archive of art and resistance, while highlighting language as fluid, political, and resilient. The installation translates these reflections into a participatory environment where poems are presented as living witnesses—drafts exposed as sites of vulnerability and resilience. Language acquires material presence, memory becomes collective testimony, and trauma is rearticulated as aesthetic form. At its core, the writing zone functions as an open laboratory, inviting visitors to inscribe their own voices into the evolving archive. In this gesture, spectators become participants, contributing to a shared space of solidarity and healing.