2/24 is the name of this exhibition on the war in Ukraine which gathers three series of images, each made in one day: Paroxysm, Fury and Apocalypse. Since February 24, 2022, I am feeling an intense pain and I live in a serious mental confusion. I am fighting against a collapse of myself, as if I were walking in the middle of a huge frozen lake and the ice suddenly broke into billions of fragments, in a deafening crash. There are so many reasons for this that the only answer to my stupefaction is to withdraw into myself and remain silent.

I am a helpless witness to the worst that mankind has produced for the world and for the earth, embarked in a ship adrift, crazy, cynical, ruthless, corrupt. Every time the events ask the human species to overcome itself, it chooses meanness.

Only that which affects our flesh matters, the rest is senseless chatter. No matter who the tyrant is, whether he is mad or evil, no matter who the heroes are, whether they were clowns, opportunistic businessmen or saints in their past, no matter who the leaders of the nations are, whether they are realistic or naive, weak or manipulative, no matter who the soldiers are, whether they are nationalists or globalists, invested with democratic or imperialist values, impeccable in their uniforms displaying shiny medals won on the field of honor, or thieves, rapists, bloodthirsty and flesh shredders, no matter this war has been repeated to the point of nausea by the same people against other peoples, with the same horror, the same impunity, the same shame, the same will to subjugate ideas, to destroy temples and ideologies, to subject terrorists to state terror, populations to the will of the people, no matter what the real history is, the one that will be forgotten and the one that will suit the victors : here and now, in my land, in my community of culture, spiritual beliefs, common sense, way to speak and way of being a society, children, their parents and elders are suffering the blows and fire of a devastating violence that violates their bodies and their souls.

I am thinking in particular of the children whose hearts and minds will be invaded throughout their lives by the thunderous crash of bombs that will shatter their reasoning, their social relationships and their future behavior, sowing the seeds of hatred and disorder for a whole wasted generation.

Each of us, individually, from the humblest to the most powerful in this world, sincerely believe we are acting for good and truth, and collectively we sink into the dark ocean of cruelty, beyond the worst abominations perpetrated by the most abject living beings since life appeared on earth.

With love - Milena Carbone.