What can we learn about a country by looking at it through the eyes of its youngest artists?
This question became the starting point for answers in August 2026 at the Calgary Central Library as the Canadian audience was introduced to “Prosto Nebylytsi”, a Ukrainian art project that has been shaping a unique visual archive of children’s and youth creativity for fifteen years.
The exhibition presented in Calgary brought together 67 works by young Ukrainian creators. Varying in technique, temperament, and artistic language, these pieces do not attempt to offer a singular image of Ukraine. On the contrary, the viewer is presented with a multiplicity of personal worlds: imaginary and real, filled with color, memory, humor, observation, and the freedom of imagination that often precedes professional artistic conventions.
This is the first Canadian presentation of the project in its entire fifteen year history. However, the exhibition itself is just one fragment of a much larger story. Over the years of “Prosto Nebylytsi”, young authors from all regions of Ukraine have submitted over 13,000 works. Nearly 2,000 of them have been included in the exhibition collection, which has been presented in more than twenty countries worldwide.
It is this scale that gives the project its special significance. We are looking not merely at a sequence of children’s exhibitions but at a cultural archive that continues to grow alongside its creators and the country in which they live.
Art as a Way of Seeing
The immediacy of perspective in the works of these young artists is particularly captivating. Here, art does not yet necessarily strive to meet established categories or expectations. Primarily, it becomes a way to observe, remember, invent, and speak.
This is also where the broader meaning of “Prosto Nebylytsi” originates. The project combines exhibition practices with an educational and research mission, paying special attention to supporting gifted children, including youth deprived of parental care and participants with special needs.
Today, this dimension cannot be separated from the historical moment in which Ukraine finds itself. Against the backdrop of the criminal genocidal Russian aggression against Ukraine, supporting a new generation of artists takes on additional meaning. The preservation of culture occurs not only through the protection of already established heritage. It also happens by creating conditions where the next generation is given the opportunity to form its own artistic language.
The Exhibition as an Archive
Alongside the works of young creators, the Calgary exhibition included the watercolor Heart of Gold by Belgian artist Rita Dosho and the pastel work Clouds of a Pot by the project’s academic director, Doctor of Art History Oleh Boliuk.
Another layer of the exhibition addressed not so much individual artworks but the memory of the project itself. The catalogs of “Prosto Nebylytsi” published between 2013 and 2025 formed a timeline of its development, while a collection of special Ukrposhta postage stamps from 2016 to 2025 demonstrated how images created by young artists transcended the exhibition space and became part of a broader visual culture.
Thus, the exhibition encouraged looking in two directions simultaneously: at the singular artistic gesture of the young creator and at the fifteen year history of institutional memory gradually forming around these works.
Ukraine Through the Eyes of the Heirs to Its Culture
The official presentation of the exhibition took place on August 18, 2026. Ukrainian and Canadian cultural traditions met not only within the visual space of the exhibit: the evening opened with the anthems of Ukraine and Canada performed by the Ukrainian choir Pereveslo, and the musical program was continued by the children’s choir Soloveiko. Representatives of the local community and Canadian Ukrainian institutions also participated in the presentation.
However, the most profound encounter of this exhibition happens quietly between the viewer and the artwork.
When the art of young Ukrainians is presented thousands of kilometers from where it was created, it ceases to be merely a personal expression. It becomes a mode of cultural presence.
In this sense, “Prosto Nebylytsi” offers the Canadian viewer not so much an exhibition about Ukraine but an opportunity to see the Homeland from within, thanks to the imagination of those who are inheriting its culture and are already shaping its next era of development.
