Can you introduce yourself to our readers?
Hello! My name is Sashko Piven, I am a student at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture, a member of Priama Diia and подиху (an activist group at my university), I study scenography and I come from the beautiful city of Kharkiv, but I currently live in Kyiv.

You are an art student in Kyiv. You create drawings and works of art. But you live in a country at war. How does this situation influence your creativity and inspiration?
In reality, I cannot answer this question concisely or directly. I remember the first year, perhaps for a year and a half, when the war really hung over everything and everyone. At the time, I was living abroad and had decided not to teach or make my art public until the war was over, but it continues. This feeling came with time, but the war is present in everything I do. I live in a country where it continues, and each of my works has a military context, even my studies. At one point, the war determined everything, it was at the centre of everything, and it overshadowed everything else. That is no longer the case today; it is no longer our only reference point. It is a worrying thought, because we depend on the opinion of people abroad and we fear that if our problems become too well known, it will overshadow the war and reduce the aid given to Ukraine, but I hope it will create a sense of community, because the problems are the same everywhere.

As for inspiration, in fact, from what I know, it’s something that spreads among all those who have been engaged in similar activities for a long time. Inspiration is simply a state in which, I don’t know, the desire to draw/create something intensifies, but that desire is not decisive. It’s like when you cook: sometimes you feel like making something interesting, but you can cook quietly without that, it’s rare that you don’t feel like it, it’s the same for me with drawing. There are times when you can experience a particular state and say to yourself, “I have to do this now.” After David Chichkan’s funeral [1] in Kyiv, I was in Lviv and I did some work because I felt the desire to be relevant, the need to do something, to express myself in some way.

Unfortunately, Ukraine’s history has seen many periods of war, but it is precisely at such times that artists have been extremely creative. I am thinking of the avant-garde artists of the 1920s, the “shot generation” or, during the Stalinist era (it was the period of Khrushchev’s thaw), the magnificent mosaics of Alla Gorska, who was assassinated by the KGB. What inspires you about these artists in the current situation in Ukraine?
What they accomplished. Most of their works were created during the occupation. I didn’t experience that, but there are days when I think, I hope, that my work can also have an impact and be part of something bigger than myself.

What are your sources of inspiration today? How do you work? In a studio?

Hmm, that’s a complex question. Inspiration can come from anything, but recently, my activities or what I’d like to do are related to political illustrations, images for the union and for my studies. At my academy, we have a workshop system, but in general, I draw a lot of different abstract images when I talk to people and then I like to give them to them as gifts. I drew a piece last night during the bombing of Kyiv [see the drawing in purple “common, freedom, equality, solidarity" ]. The idea came to me during a walk with my roommate (I live in a dormitory). So it can definitely be anywhere, anytime.

You are also a member of Priama Diia. Can you tell us why you joined the student union?

Because it was necessary. It was March 2025, and we were going through a very intense period at the Academy, with picket lines for better conditions in the university residence. Then there were discussions and meetings with the administration, for which we needed the Priama Diia activists who had not been present before, but who had been at the heart of the action from the beginning. They simply fought alongside us, on an equal footing. Our administration really didn’t want any “outsiders”, so we tried to “integrate” them anyway. To do this, we needed a base, a centre for direct action within our academy, and that’s how I got involved in all this.

In Kyiv, at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture, you are the dormitory representative. Can you tell us about the students’ living conditions?

Our academy is small and has only one dormitory, which is accessed via the only staircase in the building. This building was constructed a long time ago specifically for art university dormitories, and no major renovations had been carried out in our part of the building since then, until last spring. The students live two or three to a room and share kitchens, toilets and showers, which unfortunately are located in the basement, along with the washing machines, not far from the shelter. In the kitchens, we have access to a balcony that has been in poor condition since 2020. After the large-scale invasion began, the students at our academy started paying utility bills. According to Ukrainian law, utility bills must not exceed 40% of the scholarship (at the time of the interview, the scholarship was 2,000 UAH, 41 euros), but our administration interprets this in its own way, and in February 2025, each student had to pay more than 1,700 UAH (€35) in fees, and considering that we pay 800 UAH (€17) for accommodation, the scholarship does not allow us to live; we are in the red just paying for accommodation, not to mention food. We are an arts institution, and the materials for our studies also represent a significant expense, none of which is covered by the academy. In February, when the charges were higher, the living conditions were simply unbearable: the temperature in the rooms varied between 12 and 20 degrees, the hot water ran out very quickly in the women’s showers, while in the men’s showers there was practically no hot water for a week, and in the left block there was no hot water in the kitchens for a week as well. However, after protests, renovation work was undertaken, our charges were reduced, the number of service employees in the university residence increased, but the charges are still in force, the mould in the showers and the condescending attitude of the administration persist.

Priama Diia has led many struggles for the renovation of the dormitories. How did you organise this struggle?

If we take the example of NAOMA (National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture), it was all a bit chaotic, especially at the beginning, and a bit traumatic for me, but then Priama Diia appeared. At first, around November or December, activists came to the academy because they had received a comment about the poor living conditions and wanted to communicate with the other students. Shortly afterwards, one of my close friends contacted the Priama Diia activists because of the cold in her room, and a 70-person chat group was created, with everyone who wanted to join in the university residence, and then there was the first joint meeting in the student area located in the university building. There was a meeting with the administration and regular meetings, i.e. once a week, we organised an online conference call and discussed the situation and what needed to be done. We prepared to organise a picket line for about two weeks, we posted messages and mobilised students by going through the workshops. At the first picket line, there were more than 150 people, I don’t know the exact number, but it seems that it was the largest student picket line at a university since the start of the large-scale invasion. In mid-April, a second picket took place, then PoDyakh was created, the first direct action group at NAOMA, but there was sabotage from the administration. Many universities have currently implemented blended learning [online and in-person] due to the war. At NAOMA, this translates to one day of in-person learning per week for each course. Since the resumption of in-person classes, there have been no additional days of online classes, whereas in other educational institutions it is common to organise an online day after night-time bombings. But at NAOMA, this practice did not exist, with the exception of the day of the picket line. Today, during the bombing of the city, the academy’s students joke that they have to bring placards for the online class day to take place.

In reality, my academy is small, with fewer than 1,000 students, which creates a strong sense of cohesion. Most students are aware of the problems and feel directly affected by many of them. The mobilisation process was relatively easy, as the students were tired and angry about the arbitrariness of the administration. For several years, many students had been trying to resolve this issue. We are currently considering what further action to take to completely eliminate the charges, as we have started to pay less. In reality, there are many positive consequences, such as the I mentioned earlier, but there has been pressure on active students and the administration is trying to take revenge on us. According to some rumours, a new member of the administration wants to go around the rooms to check that they are clean.

What other union actions are you taking?

We have many projects and it is difficult to prioritise them. Since the summer, we have started to take care of the student space created by students in 2019. We cleaned it up and organised the first events, but our administration has imposed administrative formalities on us, for which I am responsible, as it happens that the documents fall within my remit, and I have to process them as quickly as possible. We are continuing our campaign for good management of the university residence and are in the process of setting up a student council, as last year it was represented only by its president, a young woman who is also a member of Priama Diia. However, the student council is essential for accessing various documents and resolving issues (last year, our administration declared that the student council was not a legitimate body, which complicates matters considerably). At the very moment of this interview, we, the students of NAOMA, have learned that the semester is going to be shortened, and we plan to oppose this. After last spring’s experience, voices are already being raised to call for protest, but unfortunately we will start by fighting the bureaucracy of the administration. We are dealing with the student space, the creation of new self-governing bodies within the academy for greater decentralisation, community life and now the shortened semester.

A difficult question. How do you see your future and that of Ukraine?

It’s really complicated. In two or three years, I’ll probably be able to give a clear answer and talk about my plans for the post-war world, but for now, I don’t know. I don’t know how long the war will last, what problems there will be afterwards, or what we’ll have to do. I don’t want to speculate and dramatise, because we already have so many problems right now that it would be absurd to ignore them and put them off until later. I lost a friend because of the war in January 2023. I was older than her, even though we were only two years apart. She was a student and living her life, then a Russian rocket ended it all. No one expects death or violence; they always come unexpectedly. It weighs on me. I think I’m doing what I can, I want to do more, but neither my hope, nor my motivation, nor my faith are based on an uncertain future, on post-war Ukraine, on revolution, on a beautiful and ideal life. If I see that, it will be a miracle, but I just want as many people as possible not to experience the pain and problems I have experienced. Our thoughts about the future always lead us to think about the end of the war, a lifeline and sweet dreams, but I think it will become more difficult because the front line is getting closer and our responsibility is greater. I know what I want to do after I graduate from university, and I think I will start doing it while I am still studying, no more and no less, but I want a theatre that is sincere, free and accessible. I think it will be open to the left and free or inexpensive, that it will be provocative and political, that we will perform plays directly in the street and that we will flee from the police if necessary. I think that then I will have more strength and influence to do something, simply something good.

Sashko Piven was interviewed by Patrick Le Tréhondat