When darkness becomes too much, memory must provide the light. That is why we, the Skeiron team, created the exhibition project "Through the Darkness. The Light of Memory." With the opening of this exposition, we have made the Ukrainian wound visible — as a reminder of the crimes of the aggressor that can neither be forgotten nor forgiven.
This exhibition is about people whose stories could have vanished in the fires of war, but we refuse to let that happen. Here, you will find more than just digital copies of torture sites or ruins. Here are names and voices. Roads and homes. Life "before" and life "after." We have preserved these testimonies in a digital format so that the future has evidence, and memory remains strong, living, and undeniable.
How the project was born?
Preserving cultural heritage has always been and remains the core mission of our Skeiron team. We digitize architectural monuments to save them for future generations. However, the war forced us to expand our priorities and apply our experience in laser scanning to document the tragedies of today.
The path of this project began unexpectedly: after our work was featured on American television, we were noticed by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. Representatives of the foundation, on their own initiative, proposed a collaboration to digitize evidence of Russian terror. It was this support that allowed our team to document sites that became symbols of the suffering of the Ukrainian people during the occupation of Izium, which lasted over five months — from April 1 to September 10, 2022.
Our mission was to record key points of pain in the Kharkiv region. We documented the mass burial site near Izium, capturing the horrific consequences of the occupation in digital form for future research and forensics. An incredibly difficult stage was the police station in Izium: what should have been a state institution, the Russians turned into a place for torture. We digitized every meter of these walls because they still "scream" with thousands of stories of those who passed through this hell. A separate source of pain was Kamianka — a village where not a single building survived. Due to the dense presence of "butterfly" mines, we could not walk freely on this land, so we deployed drones. This was the only way to record the ruins of homes and save the memory of a place where life once thrived.
Frankly speaking, when we first began our cooperation with the foundation, we did not even think about organizing an exhibition. Our task was simply to record everything before the evidence disappeared. But later we realized: these testimonies are too important to simply lie in archives — they must become a voice that the world hears. This data is critically important for historians, archaeologists, and investigators.
Exhibition Concept: How Does Darkness Become Visible?
The title of the exhibition "Through the Darkness. The Light of Memory" arose from the need to call things by their true names. For us, darkness is not just the absence of light; it is those horrific events in which human life is extinguished, the numbness of occupation, and the aggressor's attempt to erase our identity.
Instead, light is about our resilience. It is the choice to be in this pain but to continue fighting, loving, and remembering. It is the courage to point out evil, to openly voice what happened, and not let the truth dissolve into silence. Despite the tragedy of the memories, we choose the path of remembrance, nurturing an entirely new culture of commemoration — living, honest, and active.
We wanted to create a space where technology does not interfere but helps one feel reality. That is why the exhibition looks minimalistic and focused on objects. The darkness in the halls is a symbol of the state in which people found themselves during the war. And every 3D model, every sound is an immersion tool that prevents the visitor from remaining a detached observer.
"We will not allow the space to disappear in silence. We are writing it into the collective memory. This is the return of home — in a symbolic, cultural sense. Our work is the foundation on which a new home and future justice will be built," notes the conceptual curator of the exhibition, Viktoriia Skorokhid.
In the photo: Viktoriia Skorokhid, conceptual curator of the exhibition "Through the Darkness. The Light of Memory."
Source: Interfax-Ukraine / Oleksandr Zubko.
Elements of the exhibition
The exposition is divided into three meaningful zones, each telling its part of the story of the occupation.
The process of choosing objects for digitization became a separate and extremely responsible challenge: how exactly to define those points that would speak the loudest? The Main Directorate of the National Police in the Kharkiv region helped us in this. Together, we searched for places that would most fully prove: the occupiers destroyed everything without exception. It was important for us to show that destruction and torture chambers were everywhere: in police stations, cultural sites, and private homes. Every digitized model is evidence of the systemic terror that entered every room.
Zone 1. Destruction
The occupiers targeted not just buildings; they targeted lives. In the first zone, we focused on the systematic destruction of identity. Thanks to the "Memorial" Memory Platform, these digitized ruins of residential buildings have come alive with real stories of people.
One such object is a house on Ukrainska Street. Vitaliy Perehon, arriving at his aunt's house, found only one surviving wall. That night, Russian troops dropped three aerial bombs. Three generations of the Perehon family died here — 7 people in total, including children aged 3 and 9. 18-year-old Liza was buried with her wedding dress. Due to difficulties with DNA testing, the relatives could not be buried for almost a year.
Another symbol of the tragedy was a house on a street now renamed Memory Street. On March 9, 2022, a Russian airstrike collapsed two entrances, burying dozens of people under the rubble. Among them was the family of Mykhailo Yatsentiuk. The man, who worked as an electrician, personally equipped a shelter in the basement for his closest relatives. That morning, he stepped out onto the landing for tea for his granddaughter Arina when the explosion occurred. Mykhailo survived but lost his wife, daughter, son-in-law, and three grandchildren. He found the youngest, Arina, in her mother's arms when the rubble was finally allowed to be cleared during the occupation. 51 people died under this building.
An important element of the physical exposition in this zone is AR posters — a kind of digital window into the reality of the Kharkiv region. It is enough to point a smartphone at a QR code, and the flat image on the screen comes to life, turning into a three-dimensional 3D model of a destroyed building.
And with the help of VR goggles, visitors can find themselves in the middle of destroyed cities that were virtually wiped off the face of the earth. This allows one to examine every "scar" on the walls of the digitized objects and literally touch history.
Zone 2. Torture
This part of the exhibition immerses you in the oppressive atmosphere of the occupation. With the help of VR goggles, visitors can find themselves inside an exact digital copy of the Izium police station. This is a cell measuring 1.5 × 2.5 meters. We recreated the visual presence: the look of the cold walls, the damp air, and the atmosphere of pressure in which the Russians illegally held civilians. You can literally explore this space, seeing through your own eyes every centimeter of a place that breathes pain.
Unfortunately, the station is not the only place of torture. In total, more than 30 have been discovered in the region. No torture chamber arose spontaneously: they were organized according to the same principle — in basements, police stations, schools, and factories. We have preserved many of these objects in 3D models, so they can be viewed in maximum detail at the exhibition.
Zone 3. Loss of Life
At the heart of this zone is a large-scale 3D model of the mass burial in Izium, which we printed on a printer. This is the physical embodiment of the horror we saw in the pine forest: hundreds of wooden crosses where numbers stood instead of names.
Bodies were brought here from all over the city — people who died from airstrikes, shelling, or torture. 17 Ukrainian soldiers were found in one common grave, and 99% of all the deceased had clear signs of a violent death. The occupiers wanted to leave them nameless, but the exhibition returns to them a face, a voice, and a biography.
Thanks to state-of-the-art mobile DNA laboratories provided by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, hundreds of people have been identified.
A name is not just an entry in documents. It is a story, connections, and circumstances that do not allow a person to be just a number.
Today, together we are creating a new culture of memory, which is becoming the roots of our resilience. Russia wants dead silence, but we respond with a voice. Because we are not numbers.
What’s Next?
This exhibition is our desire to tell the world about the Ukrainian tragedy. All information has already been dubbed into English so that the exposition can travel abroad, reminding the international community of the true price of our freedom. In addition to its educational mission, the collected data also has practical legal significance: digital copies are witnesses that are not mistaken and do not change their testimony. They can become evidence in future international tribunals, helping to establish justice. Also, these precise models can serve architects and engineers as a basis for the future restoration of destroyed objects.
"We want to influence those who have not yet decided: opinion leaders, political elites, countries that hesitate. That is where such exhibitions should work," said the project producer and co-founder of Skeiron, Yurko Prepodobnyi.
In the photo: Yurko Prepodobnyi, co-founder of Skeiron and producer of the exhibition "Through the Darkness. The Light of Memory."
The exhibition is heavy, but it is about the light that remains in people even in the darkest times.
The exposition is open to visitors at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War (Kyiv) until February 9.
We express our sincere gratitude to everyone without whom this project would not have become a reality.
In particular, to the Howard G. Buffett Foundation — for their trust and financial support of the project; to the entire Skeiron team — people who lived this project and made it possible. Special thanks to the conceptual curator Viktoriia Skorokhod, who became the heart and soul of this exhibition, as well as to our partners who provided materials and evidence, thanks to whom human stories came to life: the Main Directorate of the National Police in the Kharkiv region and the "Memorial" Memory Platform; and, of course, to the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War for the dignified space for holding the exhibition project.