Join us for the opening reception of MARIUPOL, an exhibition of photographs by Evgeniy Maloletka and Mstyslav Chernov, at the Bernstein Gallery.
The reception is preceded by a conversation between Maloletka and Deborah Amos, Ferris Professor of Journalism in Residence, with an introduction by Joe Stephens, founding director of the Princeton Program in Journalism.
Opening Event, Wednesday, October 11
4:30–6pm, Robertson Hall, Bowl 001
Evgeniy Maloletka in conversation with Deborah Amos
6–8pm, Bernstein Gallery
MARIUPOL Opening Reception
Please RSVP here. Registration is appreciated but not required.
On February 24, 2022, the Russian Federation launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Three Ukrainian journalists from the Associated Press—Evgeniy Maloletka, Mstyslav Chernov, and Vasilisa Stepanenko—arrived in Mariupol an hour before the attack’s apocalyptic beginnings. They had driven through the night, painfully aware of the port city’s strategic significance for the Kremlin.
Presented chronologically, the photographs by Maloletka and Chernov bear witness to the destruction wrought during the Russian siege of Mariupol in February and March 2022. The AP journalists were the only international media reporting from the city, the only team able to transmit video and still photographs beyond the blockade.
As the war pushes on, these photographs fight against forgetting, confronting us with the incomprehensible terror of what happened in Mariupol. The siege ended after more than eighty days. Mariupol has been occupied by Russia since May 2022.
Evgeniy Maloletka is a Ukrainian war photographer, journalist, and filmmaker who has been covering the war in Ukraine since 2014. He has also covered the Euromaidan Revolution, the protests in Belarus, the Nagorno-Karabakh war, and the COVID-19 pandemic in Ukraine. In 2023, he received numerous international awards for his photographs, including World Press Photo of the Year and two Pulitzer Prizes, one for public service, which he shares with his AP Mariupol team, and another for breaking news photography.
Mstyslav Chernov is a Ukrainian war correspondent, filmmaker, photographer, and novelist known for his coverage of the Ukrainian revolution, the Russian invasion in Ukraine, the war in Iraq, Syria, and Nagorno-Karabakh, and Afghanistan under Taliban rule after U.S. withdrawal, as well as for his art installations and exhibitions. Video he shot in Mariupol became the basis of his film 20 Days in Mariupol, which won the Audience Award in World Cinema Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival in 2023. He shares the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service with Evgeniy Maloletka and Vasilisa Stepanenko.
Image credit: A Ukrainian serviceman takes a photograph of a damaged church after shelling in a residential district in Mariupol, Ukraine, Thursday, March 10, 2022. AP Photo / Evgeniy Maloletka.
