Emotional Frontlines: Ukrainian Women and the Invisible Wounds of War

War is often understood through images of visible devastation, bombed buildings, military casualties, and displaced families. But just as enduring, and often overlooked, is the emotional destruction that lingers inside the survivors. This exhibit centers four testimonies from Ukrainian women in the Poltava region, offering a deeper look into the psychological and emotional costs of war, costs that are neither seen nor easily healed.

Through the lens of maternal fear, fragmented memory, and internal resilience, this exhibit explores how war reshapes not just landscapes but identities. These women are not soldiers or politicians. They are caregivers, professionals, and mothers, tasked with comforting others while navigating their own silent trauma. Their stories uncover the invisible labour of emotional survival: grieving in silence, suppressing fear, and holding families together as the world falls apart.

Each testimony illuminates a different facet of civilian suffering. A young mother mourns the trauma of sexual violence and the societal pressure to suppress it. An older woman voices intergenerational anxiety as she struggles to protect her pregnant daughter. A pharmacist endures airstrikes while continuing to care for the displaced. Another rejects once-close Russian relatives and describes how war has numbed her capacity to feel joy. What unites these voices is not a single narrative, but a shared determination to endure, resist, and make sense of the senseless.

Language, spoken, broken, prayerful, emerges as both a coping mechanism and a tool of resistance. These testimonies reveal how expression becomes an act of survival, and how voice, even when uncertain, is a powerful form of presence. This exhibit reframes “resilience” not as silent endurance, but as the everyday courage to keep caring, speaking, and holding space for grief in the midst of chaos.

This exhibit does not just document war, it invites you into the emotional frontlines, where survival is measured not in victories or defeats, but in the quiet strength of women who refuse to be erased. Through their stories, we witness how pain, language, and memory shape what it means to live through war and to live beyond it.

Testimony 269

A 26-year-old mother from the Poltava region reflects on the emotional aftermath of sexual violence and the pressure to “move on” without space to mourn. Her testimony reveals how trauma lingers even after physical danger has passed. She navigates grief while caring for others, caught between societal expectations and personal devastation. Her experience embodies the invisible weight women carry during war, grief that must be hidden, resilience that must be constant, and silence that becomes its own form of survival.

Testimony 274

A 55-year-old woman from the Poltava region voices deep anxiety for the future, unsure how to protect her daughter or make sense of the violence around her. Though not physically displaced, she is emotionally fractured, oscillating between anger, fear, and helplessness. Her testimony highlights the burden of maternal responsibility during war, where generational fear and powerlessness compound one another. Through her internal conflict, we see how war destabilizes not only communities, but also identity and purpose across age and role.

Testimony 280

A 24-year-old pharmacist from the Poltava region continues to serve displaced civilians despite personal risk, describing long days under airstrike warnings while offering care and medicine. Her testimony reflects the moral pressure to remain helpful even when overwhelmed. She portrays resilience not as heroic defiance, but as quiet, exhausting commitment to others. Her account underscores the emotional labour demanded of civilian women, especially those who remain, to keep others afloat while barely staying afloat themselves.

Testimony 282

A 39-year-old woman from the Poltava region speaks of dreams filled with disconnection and rage, her emotions dulled by prolonged fear. She describes an inability to experience joy and a growing detachment from formerly close relatives. Her story reveals the emotional rupture war inflicts on both inner and outer worlds. Numbness replaces clarity, and relationships become casualties of ideological betrayal. Her testimony quietly but powerfully illustrates how war corrodes the foundations of feeling and belonging.