‘LIGHT ALWAYS WINS OVER DARKNESS’

‘LIGHT ALWAYS WINS OVER DARKNESS’

As Russia’s war with Ukraine marks its grim one-year anniversary, how have Ukrainian lighting professionals coped and adapted over the past 12 months? Lighting Journal spoke to one leading Ukrainian lighting designer about how the industry has responded

By Nic Paton

This month – March – marks the rather grim one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which was launched on 24 February last year.

We’ve all of course spent the past 12 months watching the war unfold on our TVs, laptops and phones and, indeed, felt the ripples reverberate through our own economy and businesses. Not least of this has been the impact on the UK lighting industry of this winter’s energy crisis, as the ILP’s event in Daventry highlighted last month, and which we also report on in this edition.

For Ukrainian lighting professionals, the past 12 months have been marked by horror, trauma and adversity, especially the impact of constant air raids and losing friends, family, and colleagues. However, as Mykola Kabluka, co-founder of Dnipro-based Expolight emphasises, it has also been a year of stoicism, adaptability and the determination, very simply, not to give in.

‘Dnipro is not far from the front lines,’ he tells Lighting Journal. ‘Russia has been bombing almost every week. Our team decided to stay in Ukraine, to stay in Dnipro. We wanted to set an example, to show our confidence in the victory of our country. We are not moving, we’re here, and we’re still working!’

Notionally, we’re on the call to talk about Expolight’s lighting scheme for a new bar in Kyiv, ‘ZMIST’ (and see the panel at the end for more on this). But, naturally, the impact of the war and its effect, not just on Expolight but the whole Ukrainian lighting industry, dominates the conversation.

The ZMIST Bar in Kyiv, with a lighting scheme by Mykola Kabluka and the Expolight team. Left, one of the sketches for the scheme

IMPACT OF THE WAR

In fact, it is ever-present. On our call Mykola is dialling in from Bali in Indonesia (which we’ll come back to). But, as we speak, communications and content manager Maryna Chuprova, in Dnipro, point outs – almost casually – that there have been reports of further shelling of the city.

‘The situation is of course not easy or good in general,’ say Mykola. ‘Yet, even with the war, clients have continued working on projects – for much the same reason as we have kept working, kept going forward. They understand that it’s very risky to continue construction projects when any moment a Russian missile can destroy it.

‘But it is important to keep going – for money, for economics, to keep people in work. Our cashflow for the past year of war is down €500,000. But we’ve kept paying the salaries for our whole team. Me and my partners decided we wouldn’t shrink the company.

‘We restarted our work just two or three weeks after the invasion. At that point Russia was very close to Kyiv of course. The first thing we did, because we had the time, was the team all volunteered to help with organising heating and installing additional, temporary street lighting.

‘A few of the team, the younger ones, went to the front. Our electrical engineer, for example, who hadn’t any previous military experience, volunteered. He was injured in the first few months of the war, near Bakhmut. He spent some time in the hospital here but is now back at the front in Bakhmut.

‘So, the situation is hard. But we keep a positive attitude. We’ve installed a powerful diesel electricity generator on the roof of our building; we’ve installed satellite internet. We’ve set up independent heating generation for the office and we’ve even drilled a well into the ground to ensure that we have a water supply independent of the city supply, should we need it. We also, thankfully, have a basement where colleagues can go down and shelter during an air raid,’ Mykola points out.

Dnipro in central Ukraine. The city sits on the banks of the Dnipro River. Below more views of the ZMist Bar in Kyiv, and (bottom) how the city has looked in recent blackouts caused by Russian attacks on its infrastructure

RETURN OF LIGHTING PROJECTS

As the war has gone on, while things certainly cannot be said to have returned to anything near ‘normal’, lighting work and projects have gradually returned, Mykola explains.

‘We have a lot of projects still on the go, both inside and outside of Ukraine. Now, in fact, we are able to look after more international projects as well – so much so that I am travelling a lot. I’m in Bali right now, and a few days ago I was in Dubai. Before that I was London. Later this week I’m off to New York,’ he adds, highlighting that the practice has even won three international awards this year.

‘The hardest thing is that almost every day we get the news that somebody we know – a friend, relative or colleague – has died; that is the worst thing. The rest of it is just about adapting and learning to live with the situation. But you’re always aware that at any time something horrible could happen.

‘Unless there is an air raid, people are trying to carry on their lives in Kyiv as much as normal, although there are fewer people in the city than there were of course. It is noticeable that, before the war, Kyiv was full of traffic – and traffic jams – and now it’s not.

‘It may not be as noisy and bustling but it is still active as a city. ZMIST is not the only project in Kyiv we are working on, for example. We’re working on another restaurant project as well as four big construction projects, including lighting a glass façade on one of Kyiv’s main skyscrapers, which is very brave when you consider the ongoing bombing.

‘I’d say 90% of Ukrainian lighting businesses are still working. Most of them are big and so, economically, have been able to keep going. The main issue is electricity – it is very difficult to keep things going sometimes, and not everybody is able to have independent electrical power sources. But people are just adapting to cope. As I always say, light always wins over darkness,’ Mykola says.

THE ‘ZMIST’ BAR

Kyiv’s ‘ZMIST’ Bar combines innovative lighting design, from Expolight, with creative and stunning glass installations created by glass-blowing specialist Optical Metaphor, a subsidiary of Expolight based in Lviv.

As Mykola Kabulka says of the project: ‘It is a great project. Optical Metaphor did an amazing job. Fortunately, their factory is near the Polish border, so about as far away from the front as you can get. But getting gas for the ovens was difficult, and diesel for the electrical generator. So, every day we were having to solve a lot of issues.

‘It was one of the first projects we restarted after the invasion. We started it in March, when the Russians withdrew from around Kyiv,’ he continues.

‘We had a call with our clients – Kateryna and Dmytro Zhvaliuk. We were texting and discussing a time when we could organise our meeting. I proposed a time but they said they couldn’t make it because they were going to be at a funeral of a colleague, his creative director, who had been killed in Bucha.

‘He’d been volunteering, with his girlfriend, to drive around bringing food and medicine to elderly people, and to evacuate them as well. But his car was stopped by Russian forces and they were shot. So that was horrible to hear,’ Mykola recalls.

‘I remember when we did finally have the video call Kateryna and Dmytro were sitting with their laptop – and a child too – in the corridor of the apartment because that’s a better place to be during an air raid, because there are more walls protecting you. But, just as it was for us, it was important for them to continue with the project, to finish the project, to support his team, and to show our support for Ukraine.

‘They wanted us to complete the project before Ukrainian Army Day in October, which celebrates our armed forces – and is especially important now of course – which we did,’ he adds.

Since ZMIST is a hookah bar, the theme and ambience is very much about smoke and shadows, using glass prisms to throw smoke-effect lighting patterns on to the walls. An installation of small trees creates a biodynamic effect, with the branches and leaves also casting shadows.

‘We made sure we used fittings that were, where possible, locally manufactured in Kyiv. However, the main supplier had his warehouse completely destroyed by bombing; all his fittings, all his track systems, were burned. So we had to replace all that, and at the start of the project it was very difficult. Railway connections between the cities at that time were also difficult,’ says Mykola.

DIGITAL PROJECTIONS

A permanent, integrated digital installation creates projections on to one wall. The lighting is also under a single control system, with the colour temperature being adjusted throughout the day, from neutral warm-white then becoming gradually warmer throughout the day, with warm accents, and dimming down. Different scenes and scenarios can be created for specific events, such as birthday or anniversary celebrations.

Indeed, if someone is celebrating in the bar, everyone can order a personalised media greeting that will appear on the wall. All content and modes are linked using a Cloud-based server, meaning it can be controlled remotely from anywhere.

The lamps have narrow directional beams and are positioned in such a way as to create sliding light and shadows. ‘We carefully worked out the percentages of the ratio of brightness, intensity, and accentuation of light for day and night lighting,’ say Mykola.

‘Because of the different lighting scenarios, it can look very different at different times of the day; it can have a very different ambience. It has become a very popular destination,’ Mykola adds.

CREDITS

Lighting design: Expolight

Lighting designer: Mykola Kabluka

Interior design: Yova Yager

Area: 1,800m²

Clients: Kateryna Zhvaliuk, Dmytro Zhvaliuk

Photographer: Expolight