Color for a gray world.
Art therapy with traumatized children in Ukraine

Exhibition in the University Library of Bochum, 18.6.-31.7.2024

Art education is important: "the great power of art is to inspire in difficult times."
Yuliia Melnychenko, art therapist

Yuliia Melnychenko

Yuliia Melnychenko is an art teacher and art therapist in a suburb of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression, she has dedicated her time to working with children living in difficult circumstances. Most of them have lived through the hell of war, many have lost their father, mother, siblings or friends. The children find it difficult to draw anything, and when they do pick up a pencil, they prefer black and gray colors.

Yuliia understands the children's fears and pain. She has had to teach under fire herself, and once, during an online painting lesson, a shell hit 20 meters from her house: The blast blew her laptop off the table.

Despite the war, Yuliia finds the strength to support her young pupils every day. She firmly believes that art and creativity can alleviate, and sometimes even heal, the trauma caused by war. In her lessons, she encourages the children to express and reflect on their feelings and experiences. She encourages the pupils to exhibit their pictures, illustrate books or make crafts for charity, e.g. for Ukrainian soldiers at the front. Yuliia wants to bring color back into a world that has become black and white.

In cooperation with the Clinic for Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, LWL-Universitätsklinikum der RUB, Director a.D. Prof. Stephan Herpertz, the University Library is showing works by children between the ages of 6 and 14 that were created during Yuliia's lessons.

The exhibition can be viewed during regular opening hours.
Admission is free.

The vernissage will take place on Tuesday, June 18, 2024 at 5.30 pm in room 1/09. Yuliia Melnychenko will open the evening with a lecture and report on her work with children, followed by an opportunity for an exchange of ideas and a discussion. The lecture will be held in Ukrainian with translation into German.

During the opening of the exhibition, a stand of the non-profit organization TraumaAid Germany will provide information about the projects in the field of professional trauma therapy training in crisis areas and present the book "Lesjunja" - a children's story about the fox Lesjunja, who can rely on her inner strength in times of disaster. The sale of this book will finance further free books for Ukrainian children.