Collage, family photo archive and current newspapers, A4, 2022 St. Petersburg, Russia

Every day, Russia’s Alliance of Education Workers receives complaints from teachers who are being harassed by their schools’ administrators because of their political views. TikTok and VK.com are filled with images and videos of children lining up, at nurseries and kindergartens, into “Z”-shaped symbols of Russian propaganda. WTF?! Is education separate from politics—or completely servile to the state? What kind of a “matrix” is the state going to load into the minds of Russia’s new generation?

The police came to my child’s school to talk about “courage, ” distributing leaflets that said, “Crimea is the pearl of Russia, ” as a homework. Among the parents of my daughter’s classmates, some are in solidarity with what is happening, and others hold opinions contradicting the majority. Does this mean that they—we, that is—should remain silent?

Armed with a family archive and current newspapers, I make collages that are consonant with my sense of the situation. I do this because I cannot find printable words for what I think and feel.