Art installation made of thousands of war videos to be shown on anniversary of Russian invasion

An 11-hour-long continuous artwork that portrays a “unique and impactful reflection on the war on Ukraine” is being showcased in central London to mark the second anniversary of the Russian invasion.

VLADA, a film by Manchester-based moving image artists Nick Crowe and Ian Rawlinson was created from over 27,000 videos uploaded to a Ukrainian Telegram Channel.

The piece looks at the phenomena of mass, distributed journalism and includes over 320 videos showing simultaneously across the floor to ceiling.

VLADA will play in full for one day only on Saturday 24 February from 1pm to midnight on the immense screens at Outernet London’s flagship space The Now Building. It can be experienced for free next to Tottenham Court Road station.

Having taken a year to build, the visuals are combined with a driving soundtrack creating a single, ever shifting entity, which the filmmakers say is simultaneously “thought provoking and disturbing”.

First shown in Kyiv in October 2023, it will receive its UK premiere on February 24.

“VLADA came about because like the rest of the world we were glued to our phones watching the horror unfold,” said the artists.

“It’s also our way of not letting that horror be forgotten, nor allowing it to overwhelm or paralyse us.  After all, that’s what Putin would like. 

It’s a long form video and had to be meticulously pieced together. You’d imagine you could automate something like this, but in reality it requires a human eye to check that every element is sitting just as it should.”

The work has been created in collaboration with foundation ADOT, whose mission is to encourage the “acceptance of the similarities between us rather than the small differences, to undo the epidemic of disconnect and conflict that confronts the world”.

“This poignant exhibition provides a unique and impactful reflection on the war on Ukraine,” said the foundation. “ADOT has provided this space to engage in reflection that will bring us closer to each other, enabling us to see that our hopes, fears and love for each other are all shared as one.”

More than 9,600 Ukrainian civilians have been killed since the war started on February 24 2022, according to the most recent figures released by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), as well as 17,748 injured.

More than six million refugees from Ukraine are scattered across Europe according to figures from the UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency. The figure is around 14% of the country's population.

Roughly 31.6 million people left Ukraine at the beginning of the year, while 20.8 million have since returned to the country.