Reflecting on Landscapes of War: The Environmental Humanities Laboratory in the Carpathians

The 2014 invasion and its full-scale escalation in 2022 exposed the entanglement at the core of it: imperial politics of land use, extractivism, and warfare, bound together. This moment has demanded more than analysis—it has demanded new vocabularies, grounded and local, told in every available format, to speak to these environments from within.

The Environmental Humanities Laboratory in the Carpathians (23–29 August) took up that task, gathering scholars, artists, and cultural practitioners to think collectively about the impact of Russia's war on Ukrainian environments. In the relative safety of the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains, the authors and editors of the volume had a week to develop a careful, nuanced vocabulary of their own for thinking about environmental damage and Ukrainian ecologies more broadly. The Laboratory took the form of focused writing and peer-review sessions, bringing together researchers, artists, and those who work across both.

Alongside the intellectually stimulating peer-review sessions and discussions, participants took part in a cyanotype developing session—a sun-printing method. There were also several walks, including a hike held for Ukraine's Independence Day. On the Plants hike, guided by environmental humanities fellow Nina Direnko, participants walked through the local forest and meadow, learning about the iNaturalist app and citizen science. On the mushroom and fungi walk, participants found and identified local mushroom species.

Photo: Tanya Bots

On one of the evenings, by the bonfire, INDEX Head Sasha Dovzhyk and Environmental Humanities fellow Iryna Zamuruiva held fairy tales reading sessions, both with a strong environmental component. Besides the pleasure of listening, the participants got great examples of how the more-than-human storytelling might be done. Another prominent format was a film screening by the filmmaker and scholar Daryna Mamaisur who presented her films a steppe with rabbits and pheasants running around, and where some even saw foxes and I Stumble Every Time I Hear From Kyiv, following the lively discussion. 

The Laboratory will result in an open-access publication with Academic Studies Press. Mariia Shuvalova, the press's academic editor, also attended, making it a hands-on space for thinking and writing together.

Photo: Daryna Mamaisur

Text: Yuliia Kishchuk