A photo exhibition by Hiroyoshi Kodama, documenting the daily lives of Ukrainian skaters, will be held.

The war between Russia and Ukraine has been dragging on. Ukraine, which has become a war zone, has been designated as Danger Level 4 (Evacuation Advisory) by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and travelers have been advised to refrain from visiting. A photographer who has been traveling to Ukraine since 2022 to cover the conflict—Hiroyoshi KodamaA photo exhibition titled “Momentum / Momentum” will be held.

Hiroyoshi Kodama has visited various locations, including the capital, Kyiv, as well as Kharkiv, the Donbas region, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. He has documented the landscapes of cities under wartime conditions and the lives of the people living there, and in 2022, he published a photo book titled *Notes in Ukraine*.

In this feature, we’ll be focusing on the young skateboarders we met in Kharkiv, a city in eastern Ukraine. We’ve built relationships with the local skateboarding community and conducted extensive interviews while accompanying the skaters during their practice sessions and daily lives.

Kharkiv is an industrial city near the Russian border and Ukraine’s second-largest city. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, it has been under constant threat of attack. Even as air raid sirens wail and the sound of explosions echoes daily, I’ve captured images of young people gathering in squares and on the streets to skate.

In addition to the photographs, the venue will feature an exhibition of skateboard decks made in Kharkiv, and will also sell photo books and prints. While footage of the war viewed through a smartphone screen is almost too difficult to bear—making it hard to believe that this is actually happening—why not try to understand the situation through the everyday lives of young people riding skateboards?