T hey may look like a random collection of pot plants, some of them with yellowing leaves. But they have been labelled as “refugees” and the accompanying tags explain that they were rescued from bombed-out schools, libraries and hospitals across Ukraine, alongside photos of them in situ. Representations of clothing fashioned from the bathroom tiles of shelled apartments and factories hang on a wall.
Stone loaves of sliced bread stand on a table. The banal and the ordinary are transformed into something unexpectedly evocative in the hands of one of Ukraine’s leading artists. Yet when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago, Zhanna Kadyrova despaired.
“I felt useless,” she tells me. “I had spent 20 years as an artist and have no other.
