TIME’s Latest Cover On Resilience Was Created On Streets Of Ukraine
By Mikelle Leow, 18 Mar 2022
Image via TIME
For its March 28 issue, TIME magazine is dedicating two covers in solidarity with Ukraine. Entitled Resilience and Agony, the images illustrate the duality of the Ukrainian spirit as the country stands against Russian invasion.
The first, Resilience, is an animated artwork spotlighting Valeriia, a five-year-old girl from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih. Valeriia, who fled to Poland with her mother Taisiia and left her father and brother behind, represents the 7.5 million Ukrainian children who are being forced out of the country for a better life.
The photo, taken by Artem Iurchenko, was turned into a giant cutout by street artist JR and unfurled on Lviv’s Freedom Avenue by more than 100 Ukrainians. A drone was flown over this unfolding to create the cover.
“This little Ukrainian girl is the future, the hope, the joy, the beauty,” the artist explains, “and, in this ugly war, she reminds us what our Ukrainian friends are fighting for.”
The other image, Agony, showcases Maxim Dondyuk’s photo of a mother and child being ushered to the outskirts of the city of Irpin by a Ukrainian soldier, after Russian soldiers had blown up railroad tracks used to evacuate Ukrainians.
“When we show [the Russians] the children killed by Russian bombs, they will imagine their own children,” details Dondyuk. “They will see themselves in us. They will feel it.”
The issue’s publication follows the death of Brent Renaud, a filmmaker who on March 13 was killed by Russian fire while working on a TIME Studios documentary following the global refugee crisis.
“Together, these images are an expression of both the fortitude and agony of Ukraine, a sentiment reflected in the words of the photographers,” says TIME’s editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal.
For resources to provide recovery relief for the children of Ukraine and their families, please head here.