In the midst of the Russia-Ukraine war, art as a form of therapy is bringing comfort thanks to one young lady with roots in the Boundary Region.
Alisa Hoodikoff has been working with children and families in Ukraine to help people heal and find outlets for the trauma they’ve experienced.
She established a studio in Kyiv in late 2022, where children and families can come for a few hours and make art in a safe, relaxing environment.
Initially, no one was sure if people would want to create art during a war, but in short order children started showing up for sessions.
“We started making art,” Hoodikoff said. “I’d bring my own speaker, play music, hang out and just relax.”
Her art therapy is non-clinical, she explained. It’s a form of expression to help people work through their feelings. During sessions, she asks people to take time to get in touch with the mediums they are using, like the paint in their hands and the connection to the paper and their hands and ultimately their mind.
A passion for serving others is a family affair. Her father, Kelly, is originally from Grand Forks. He met Alisa’s mother Victoria in New York and they started a charity organization together in Ukraine 30 years ago. Alisa grew up in Ukraine, spending 18 total years there before moving to the U.S.
While not a trained psychologist, she’s observed people who’ve shared trauma are more confident making art together.
“Doing this with other people who are hurting around you somehow creates security and a safe environment for these kids,” she said.
The concept of art therapy caught on in her circle and eventually, she was getting requests from groups and individuals to travel around the city and the country to do sessions for people. While people she worked with were clearly traumatized, often in tears, Hoodikoff said she was surprised how comfortable they seemed to express themselves around a stranger.
Her art therapy sessions branched out for specific groups, such as children who lost parents in the war. She has also worked with mothers, many of whom have husbands and male relatives on the front lines. She has also started to work with men as word of her art therapy has spread.
Art has always been something she wanted to do for most of her life. She studied photography in Germany and worked for several art galleries in the eastern U.S. for about four years. It was during that time talk of an impending invasion in Ukraine by Russia began to increase, which Hoodikoff said was worrisome but felt wasn’t going to actually happen.
Then on Feb. 24, 2022, news broke of the invasion over the eastern borders.
“Russia has always been a bully, but we never thought it was going to happen,” she said. “Then I got a call from my friend and she was hysterically crying, telling us explosions were happening around us and we are leaving right now. It’s hard to think about that day, because it was more than a year ago, but the feelings are like it was yesterday.”
With intermittent updates from friends on the ground, Hoodikiff said she couldn’t focus on her job while worrying about the fate of her friends and watching a country she spent most of her life in and considered home was being ravaged by war.
She resigned from her job and set out to find a way to help. First, she organized fundraisers, but wanted to be on the ground in Ukraine helping. She kept thinking about how art can be used to heal people who have been traumatized.
She went with her parents to Ukraine in April of that year to visit friends and get an idea of how to help. On the plane home she told her parents she’s going back in a month and staying to help.
They were understandably concerned, said Hoodikoff, but she was adamant because she sees Ukraine as her real home.
“I said I know these streets so well, I grew up there, I knew these people, I’m not scared and it’s my home. They understood and gave me their blessing.”
She currently lives in Maryland, but is preparing to move permanently to Ukraine. While that may seem risky, Hoodikoff said she’s sure the war will turn in Ukraine’s favour, repeating it is her home country.
As well, she wants to show the world through her work that the stereotype of eastern European culture being humourless, lacking joy and closed-off is wrong.
“I know everyone has this image of sitting around tables, drinking vodka and loud talking, but I’ve lived here most of my life,” she said. “There is warmth and community here not enough people see.”
You can follow Hoodikoff on Instagram and her website alisajane.com.
Photos supplied by Alisa Hoodikoff