In Odesa, at the Hrushevskyi Scientific Library, from May 3 to May 17, the conceptual photography festival titled «Refraction» is underway.

The exhibition features the works of talented photographers from various Ukrainian cities including Odesa, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Khmelnytskyi, Dnipro, Kropyvnytskyi, Kryvyi Rih, Poltava, and also from the German city of Fladungen.

The main theme of the exhibition is the transformations of identity influenced by the environment.

Refraction is not just a physical process of changing the direction of light; it is a metaphor for how our self-perception changes over time due to experiences and circumstances. Distortion is not destruction but transformation. When light passes through glass or water, it changes shape, creating new contours and illusions. Similarly, a person may lose their integrity, becoming unrecognizable even to themselves, or they can become something new – more creative, more confident, and more complete, as noted by the curator of the exhibition, Maya Makeyeva.

One of the artists, Nata Chernenka, pointed out that art during wartime helps to alleviate psychological burdens.

I named my work «Deleuze's Fold». In the photograph is my bag. I unexpectedly noticed this nylon fold one evening after training. The philosopher Gilles Deleuze once viewed the fold as a unit of matter, – explained Nata Chernenka.