Tribute to Odesa | Laetitia Vançon

She came to understand that, beyond the frontlines, another kind of storm was unfolding, more intimate, rooted in daily life – resilience and quiet defiance. Odesa stood at a crossroads – between land and sea, past and future, peace and war.

Nearly a hundred days of war had passed. Tens of thousands of people had been killed, millions displaced, and countless homes, landmarks, and historic sites destroyed. Yet Vançon arrived with the spring. Nature was returning, and everywhere she looked, people were reclaiming life at all costs, despite the threat of Russian missiles, sea mines, and troops stationed just outside the nearby city of Mykolaiv.

War was present in the sea, in the air, and in every story she encountered. But so was life. Vançon turned her lens towards this space of tension: the fragile and tenacious architecture of daily existence under threat. The simplest gestures – swimming, performing arts, returning to school or church, volunteering – took on a quietly heroic dimension.

This work became a portrait of Odesa through its people: those who, in the face of the storm, stayed, who love, resist, and carry on with courage and dignity. It speaks of the ordinary gestures that carry extraordinary weight.

With this work, Vançon wanted to show that what was unfolding in Odesa was not only a matter of frontline violence, but also of a quieter turmoil lived day by day, felt in gestures, silences, and choices. Odesa is not only a place at war, it is a city where the human instinct to preserve beauty, connection, and meaning becomes an act of resistance.

It is a reminder that, even in the heart of the storm, hope, tenderness, solidarity, and spirit endure.