CAMOUFLAGE AND SURVIVAL

For this issue, Berlin-based photographer and reporter Gaby Schütze travelled to Kiev. It was a decision that required courage – and trust in her own eye. In the midst of a city under a state of emergency, she encounters a loosely knit collective of former graffiti artists who no longer spray walls, but camouflage civilian vehicles for use at the front. With paint, spray cans and improvisation, they create a new aesthetic somewhere between survival strategy and street credibility.
What was once an expression of protest and urban rebellion has become a tool of protection in Ukraine. Art becomes camouflage; style becomes function. With a feel for space, rhythm and colour, these artists design patterns meant to deceive drones. Camouflage colours as a tactile answer to a technologically waged war – at once pragmatic and radically creative.
What appears to be improvised madness follows a quiet logic: to make the vulnerable invisible. The result is vehicles that look as if they have come from a dystopian future – and yet move through the present every day on Ukrainian roads.
Gaby Schütze followed this madness with her camera. Her journey was dangerous, her movement restricted, her safety never assured. And yet she managed to bring to light a story that might otherwise have remained in the shadows: a story of creativity that does not retreat, but defies chaos – with craftsmanship, conviction and hope.