In May 2022, L.Christeseva approached the Swedish Museum of Army with an exhibition proposal “Crafts that save lives”. The exhibition opened on the 14th of May and welcomed Swedes and Stockholm’s visitors to weave a band for peace and freedom in Ukraine. The former Swedish minister of foreign affairs Ann Linde visited the exhibition and participated in the textile workshop led by Ludmila Christeseva.
The exhibition ran until the 28th of May and inspired many bypassers to donate old textiles and fashions from their homes to the camouflage net production. While the Ukrainian refugee women intertwined their grief and hope together with recycled textiles, L.Christeseva learned that crafts are a unique language for women to share their experiences of being mothers and sisters to men whom we are losing in the war. This understanding would inspire the artist to invite women from other cultures to join the textile movement and weave for peace and freedom. The project thus has grown into a powerful and symbolic movement where creativity is new currency, representing a strong resistance for peace and freedom in Ukraine and the world, at large.
