Home

INTRODUCTION

The word ‘home’ can mean many things, depending on your individual feelings and experiences. In this activity pack, you will find five creative tasks to help you explore these meanings, using photographs taken by contemporary Ukrainian photographers. These photographers were invited to create new images on the theme of home and all of its potential meanings.

At the time of writing this activity pack, it has been just over one year since Ukraine was invaded by Russian forces. The impact of the conflict means that many people have lost houses, treasured belongings and loved ones. Think about how the invasion may have changed Ukrainian peoples’ understanding of the word home. They may have been separated from friends and family, or displaced to another country.

INTRODUCTION

When working through this activity pack, think carefully about how these photographs can inspire you. Think about what the photographer wanted to include in the image and how they might have felt when taking the photograph. Let your own feelings and thoughts guide you when you write about home.

What does home mean to you? Is it a physical place, such as a building, neighbourhood, city, or town? Could home be about those who provide a sense of belonging and community; your relatives, friends, family or pets. Or, is home about a feeling, a memory? A place where you feel most comfortable and relaxed. Maybe the best definition of home is in yourself, your body, and identity; the things that make you, you. Or perhaps it is a mix of all these things.

STORY

GroupDiscussion: Whatcanyou see in the photograph?

The Photographer Marina Frolova is from a city called Kherson, which has been under attack from Russian forces since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. The city has changed a lot and many houses and buildings have been left empty or destroyed.

Marina no longer lives in Kherson, but when thinking about what home means to her she went back to visit and took this photograph. The girls in this image are sisters. They are standing outside their house with their dog, Lucky. Although many people have evacuated Kherson, the girls’ parents are not planning to leave, because for them, this is home.

© Marina Frolova, Untitled.

STORY PLANNING

What are the sisters’ names?

What are they like? How old are they? Do they get along well?

Use your imagination to create a story about the sisters and their dog, Lucky. Think about what home means to them.

Choose whether you want to write your story in the third person, or from the point of view of one of the characters.

Read as a Writer: As a class, read ‘My Brother is Magical’ by Evie Baker, or ‘ The Dream’ by Zarah Goff for inspiration!

How does your story end?

Is everything resolved? Is there an unexpected twist?

Set the scene.

Where have they been?

Where are they going? Are they taking Lucky for a walk?

Is there a mystery or problem that needs to be solved?

What are the sisters talking about? Write a conversation.

Remember to give your story a title that will interest your readers!

Describe how they feel about the change that has happened. Are they in the same place? Do they feel different about home?

This should be the peak or turning point of your story. Where has the story taken the characters?

What has changed for them?

© Marina Frolova, Untitled.

LETTER

This is a photograph of a man called Volodymyr Koval, taken by Alexander Chekmenev in February 2023. Volodymyr was born in the city of Irpin in 1954 and has lived in this house his whole life. His parents built their home bit by bit, adding rooms as their family grew, and they picked apples from an orchard in their garden.

Volodymyr lives alone now, ever since his wife died ten years ago. He is retired, and struggles with a back injury which affects his ability to move around. He can no longer harvest fruit and firewood from his garden because his apple trees were destroyed by bombs. His humble house has been badly damaged by the invasion. The doors and the roof desperately need repairing, and there are broken windows covered with cling film to keep the wind out. Volodymyr keeps the lights off to save his money and he does not have hot water or central heating.

This photograph was taken in his kitchen next to his small gas oven that heats the room to just 10°C. Volodymyr wears lots of layers and sleeps under three blankets to try and stay comfortable. Write

© Alexander Chekmenev, Untitled. From the series The Faces of The War.

© Alexander Chekmenev, Untitled. From the series The Faces of The War.

© Nazar Furyk, from the series Simple Things.

POEM

Ukrainian photographer Nazar Furyk makes photographs in unusual ways by staging scenes and experimenting with different ways of building images.

This photograph is your starting point for making a poem using imagery and writing about a precious object.

Discuss together as a class the objects you can see in the image and why the photographer might have decided to put them together. What colours are in the image?

What feelings do you associate with those colours?

To help spark your imagination, you could read and listen to this poem: ‘https://childrens.poetryarchive.org/poem/ how-to-get-an-idea/’

Followtheworksheet towriteyourpoem.

metaphor,Trytoincludedescription, personificationsimile,and inyour chosenpoemtoconveywhatyour objectmeans toyou.

© Nazar Furyk, from the series Simple Things.

SONG

The young girl in this image is currently living in temporary housing. Although she has been displaced from her home and lost many of her belongings, a song is something she can always carry with her. Write a song, keeping in mind your thoughts and feelings about home.

© Igor Chekachkov, from the series Daily Lives of the Displaced.

SONG

The words of a song are called lyrics. Songs often have verses that tell the story of a song and a chorus that has a catchy ring to it.

Listen to this song: ‘Our House’ by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKYjUn-SBcg

You can look again at the lyrics of the original song here: https://genius.com/Crosby-stills-nash-and-young-our-house-lyrics

This is a song about a young man and woman finding happiness in a place, in their first home together. It celebrates the small details of everyday life – lighting the fire, putting flowers in a vase, their pet cats.

These are four verses in the song. These are the lyrics of the first verse:

song.

I’ll light the fire

You place the flowers in the vase That you bought today

This is the chorus of the song:

Our house is a very, very, very fine house (fine house) With two cats in the yard

Life used to be so hard

Now everything is easy cause of you

And our… [repeat]

The feeling of being at home, of belonging, can mean very different things to different people. A house is not necessarily a home.

Eitherindividuallyoras aclass,followthe worksheetandwrite yourownlyricstothis

DRAWING

Draw your own picture of what home means to you. You can link it to the story, letter, poem or song you’ve written, or of something completely new!

You could draw a portrait of yourself, a friend or family member, your pet, your house, your school, or your favourite tree…

© Nazar Furyk, from the series Simple Things.

© Marina Frolova, Untitled.

© Igor Chekachkov, from the series Daily Lives of the Displaced.

© Alexander Chekmenev, Untitled. From the series The Faces of The War.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Photographs by Marina Frolova, Nazar Furyk, Alexander Chekmenev and Igor Chekachkov

Words by Pauline Rowe, Francesca Fryer, Alex Sheen, Eva Lyons and Sophie Mahon

Design and Illustrations by Carmel Lomax

With thanks to Culture Liverpool, Arts Council England, dot-art, and Ukrainian.Photographies for their support. This work was developed as a consequence of the MaxLiteracy programme funded by the Max Reinhardt Charitable Trust and supported by Engage and the National Association for Writers in Education. For more information please see: https://www.maxliteracy.org

Send us your submissions!

We would love to see the stories, poems, lyrics and drawings created in response to this activity pack. If you would like to share these with us to feature on our Digital Window Gallery, please send the following to home@openeye.org.uk by 21st July 2023:

• Pupil’s first name, age and name of school

• Good quality image of the work (JPEG or PNG files)

Please ensure that no personal or sensitive information is included in the images. Submissions will be displayed on our Digital Window Gallery in the atrium space of Open Eye Gallery until September 2023. For any more general enquiries, please contact the email address above.

About Home

The photographs featured in this pack can be viewed in galleries, independent venues, and public spaces throughout May 2023 in Open Eye Gallery’s Home project, part of the EuroFestival programme.

For more information, please visit openeye.org.uk/whatson/eurofest-openeyegallery/