MIR Meets: The Shadows Project

Yeah, and kind of staying on this theme of turning points, do you think, both of you, do you think that the full-scale invasion directs not only what the Shadows Project needs to communicate, but how? to communicate it because, Naomi, I'm sure you have something to say about this as content director, but for someone who just encounters The Shadows Project through a perfectly polished Instagram page, what does what you want to communicate go through a process of them ending up on an Instagram?

As in, like, what is our creative process?

Yeah.

And, like, especially with the war, does that direct how you communicate and what you want to communicate on Instagram? Or is it kind of more detached from...

I'd say, to answer that question first, I think the war...

It's almost like this...

It's like a lens that you see everything through.

And it's there's just no fighting it.

There's nothing that you can do.

You can't remove the lens from like you can't talk about Ukraine without talking about the war.

And I think a lot of our content right now focuses on I mean, we have a whole NGO dedicated to preserving and protecting Ukrainian art and working with frontline museums that are under direct attack because Russia is targeting museums and cultural heritage sites as part of their war.

um so in that way i think the the war is very intrinsically tied to our work um i also i think i would say that the war has there i think there's a lot of i don't know people are are generally more aware of ukraine they're more although it is through the lens of the war and you know people are forgetting in a sense i think it still gives us a little bit more i don't know we have more voice almost because the war has has publicized ukraine and made it such a you know noticeable kind of country um it doesn't feel like we need to do so much explaining about like where ukraine is or yeah You know, all these baseline things that you needed to explain to people beforehand.

There was one more thing I wanted to say.

Yeah, I think also a lot of our work, I mean, we protect and popularize Ukrainian culture.

Popularizing is mostly what we do on Instagram.

And unfortunately... another one of Russia's tools is very much a kind of soft, use of soft force abroad.

And so we had a whole campaign called the Stolen Art Campaign, which was focused on mislabeling of artists, Ukrainian artists, as Russian in Western museums.

Very contentious kind of issue.

And there...

Yeah, I mean, the war has escalated that.

And the war has... made the cultural war more worth fighting for Russia and therefore more worth fighting for us, I think.

Yeah.