As we're slowly moving into the latter part of August, the war in Ukraine has raged on for nearly 6 months now. Amidst all the calamity, tragedy and ongoing air raid sirens, however, Ukrainians are trying to get on with their lives and continue reminding us that the war is still very much a part of their reality, regardless how much we would like to think otherwise. As such, I feel incredibly privileged and fortunate to have had the chance to contribute to @dustmagazine's Fall Issue by interviewing the Odesa-born and Kyiv-based artist @mashareva during her exile in Croatia. We spoke on a number of thingsーwhich you should absolutely read about by buying the actual printーbut most importantly I was curious to find out how she found peace amidst all the chaos. Her answer was following: 'Working on [the] exhibition helped me a lot because, for the first two weeks, I was really confused about whether I actually had to do something or not. Creating anything felt pointless. “Why would you do that? It doesn’t really help save lives,” and I was completely frozen; I couldn’t do anything. But then a team of friends came together, saying, “Let’s do it!” and I started this kind of therapy with myself. I call it therapy because it truly was that. At first, I reflected on what I saw, but then the news became heavier and heavier. And at some point, I started to question myself: “It looks like the end of the world; where is the hope here? Do we have anything that will bring us energy and make us believe this will be over at some point?” and I somehow ended up thinking about nature. There is always that one thing that stays stable and that’s nature. I thought about Ukrainian soil, which is famous for its qualities and about the fact that this fight is mostly over land, especially fertile soil. I thought about all these terrible things that are happening on our soil. But then spring comes along, followed by summer, and this massive force that nature carries within never changes, no matter what'.