Echoes of the Blitz: Underground shelters in Ukraine and London explores how underground stations and metro systems provide shelter to citizens during periods of war, through a range of photographs.
The exhibition, which runs until spring 2025, features 70 striking images, including historical images from the museum’s collection alongside 38 contemporary photographs by six renowned, mainly Ukrainian, documentary photographers.
In the UK, the dominant images of wartime air raids are of Londoners sheltering in Tube stations in the 1940s. But since February 2022 similar scenes have become a familiar sight in Ukraine’s Metro systems.
Groups visiting the exhibition will see recent photographs of ordinary Ukrainian citizens shown sleeping, waiting, cooking, washing clothes, caring for their pets and creating temporary make-shift homes in Metro stations in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and its second largest city, Kharkiv.
These scenes are ‘echoed’ in the black and white archive images of Londoners taking refuge in Tube stations during World War Two.Despite these images being taken around 80 years apart, curators say they present strong parallels of human experience across different locations and conflicts.
Serhii Korovayny, a photographer featured in the exhibition, said: “I now believe even more in the power of photojournalism. Pictures are an important tool to show and make understandable the different experiences of this war, in Ukraine itself and abroad.”
Viacheslav Ratynkyi, another photographer featured in the exhibition said: “On the first day of the Russian invasion on 24th February 2022, I went down into the Metro for the first time. As I listened to the air-raid siren, I decided to take shelter there and to bring a camera with me so I could document the situation.”
The display is said to document the resilience of people in Ukraine and London during times of war and the reality of having to escape from aerial bombardment.
The exhibition is included in the price of admission, with groups of ten or more benefiting from discounted rates. For more information go to www.ltmuseum.co.uk.
