Performances at 6PM:  Friday, March 15 |  Saturday, March 16 |  Sunday, March 17 | Friday, March 22 | Saturday, March 23 | Sunday, March 24

Special Exhibition Hours: Wednesday – Sunday 1 – 5PM

Howl! Happening presents Mariupol, a new art project that captures the resilience of Ukrainians in an exhibit of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs and a multi-media performance about Russia’s full-scale invasion of the city.

An exhibit of photographs documenting the siege of Mariupol by acclaimed Pulitzer Prize winners Evgeniy Maloletka and Mstyslav Chernov — Director of the Academy Award-winning documentary 20 Days in Mariupol — envelops a stage production by Yara Arts Group. The result is the multi-media event, Mariupol, featuring a powerful photography exhibit and a compelling performance piece titled Mariupol: Diary of War and the Tree of Life. To create the performance, Virlana Tkacz interwove four diaries from Mariupol collected by Daria Kolomiec in her “Diary of War” podcast together with songs, video and poetry by Serhiy Zhadan, Ukraine’s best-known poet.

Presented by Howl! Arts and Yara Arts Group, the Mariupol exhibit opens March 7 to 24, 2024, at Howl! Happening, 6 East 1st Street in Manhattan.

The performance piece, Mariupol: Diary of War and the Tree of Life, will be presented at Howl! Happening at 6 PM Friday, March 15 |  Saturday, March 16 |  Sunday, March 17 | Friday, March 22 | Saturday, March 23 | Sunday, March 24.

The Mariupol exhibition photographs are by Evgeniy Maloletka and Mstyslav Chernov, the only Ukrainian journalists with international connections reporting from the besieged city. Their work earned them the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for public service. Evgeniy Maloletka received a second Pulitzer for breaking news photography and the prestigious Press Photo of the Year Award. Mstyslav Chernov’s documentary film, “20 Days in Mariupol,” has earned numerous awards, including the British Academy Film Award, and winner of Best Documentary Film at the 2024 Academy Awards.

Mariupol: Diary of War and the Tree of Life performance is directed by Virlana Tkacz and features four diaries collected by Daria Kolomiec. The Mariupol diaries are by Yaroslav Semenenko, a member of the Ukrainian National Paralympic swim team; Yevhenia Ivanchenko, a captain in the Mariupol Police; Olena Nikulina, from an old Mariupol family, whose husband defended Azovstal and is currently a Russian captive; and Valeria Mykhailovska, was working in the Czech Republic and decided to return home to Mariupol to rescue her mother. 

Yara Arts Group, a resident company of the renowned La MaMa Experimental Theatre, has created over forty original theatre pieces and was awarded a Village Award last year. Director Virlana Tkacz interwove the diaries from Mariupol, adding several poems by Serhiy Zhadan, which she translated with Wanda Phipps. Yara’s Julian Kytasty created the music and Maksym Lozynskyj designed the sound. Tom Lee designed the production with Waldemart Klyuzko. Yara performers include Hanna Datsko, George Drance, Silvana Gonzalez, Oksana Horban, Susan Hwang, Daria Kolomiec, Diana Kuzminova, Maxim Lozynskyj and Petro Ninovskyi.

Daria Kolomiec, a cultural activist, collected the stories for her “Diary of War” podcast while sheltering in the basement of a cafe in Kyiv during the initial weeks of the Russian full-scale invasion. Daria’s podcast included over forty stories of Ukrainians describing their encounters with the Russian invasion of their cities. 

Mariupol is made possible by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, as well as the Self Reliance Foundation, and the friends of Yara Arts Group. 

The exhibit is free and is on view from Wednesday to Sunday, 1-5, March 6-24. The performances are at 6 PM on March 15-17, 21, 23-24 at Howl! Happening (With a suggested donation of $20).

Key Image: Installation Image from MARIUPOL: Photographs & Video by Evgeniy Maloletka and Mstyslav Chernov, Presented at HA/HA November 9, 2022 – November 20, 2022.

Image Gallery: Photos by Pavlo Terekhov