Izolyatsia — Must Speak

Maps and visual backgrounds for "Izolyatsia Must Speak" a campaign combining political advocacy, public information, and an artistic component.

Maps and visual backgrounds for “Izolyatsia: Must Speak,” a campaign combining political advocacy, public information, and an artistic component. Founded in December 2020 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, the project is run jointly with the IZOLYATSIA Foundation, the Ukrainian Institute, and Stanislav Asieiev — a Ukrainian journalist and writer held as a political prisoner by the Russian Federation.

“Izolyatsia” is an illegal prison set up by the Russian Federation on the site of a former insulation-materials factory in occupied Donetsk; before the 2014 invasion, the same space housed the IZOLYATSIA cultural platform. Since 2014, more than 160 illegal prisons have operated across the occupied parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where over three thousand people have been held captive and subjected to torture. After the full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukrainian police reported at least 48 further detention and torture sites discovered in liberated areas.

The work involved reconstructing the site from archival photographs and producing a map and image-based backgrounds for the project website.

Cover Cover