“Lines of the Horizon,” 2025

photo collage, digital print on PVC

“Lines of the Horizon” is a series of photo collages reflecting on the materiality of camouflage nets and the ways in which artificial materials become part of the contemporary Ukrainian landscape. One of the artist’s responsibilities at the volunteer centre is to precisely match the shades of fabric to the terrain and season, based on photographs of specific locations sent by soldiers from the frontline. The materials used for weaving carry lived human stories: from the uniform of a fallen soldier donated by his comrades-in-arms to children’s clothing or cotton brought from abroad.

In the work, pieces of fabric arranged according to their colour palette literally merge with real horizon lines — the fields of the de-occupied Kherson region, the slag heaps of the Donetsk region, the outskirts of the Kharkiv region, and villages in the Dnipropetrovsk region. By combining documentary images of frontline landscapes with strips of textile, the artist captures the moment when artificial camouflage merges with nature, forming a new horizon line shaped by war.

Artist’s comment:

Some of the photographs of these frontline landscapes were taken by my friend. He helped me realise the project and supported its idea. At the end of June 2025, while carrying out a combat mission in the village of Muravka, Donetsk region, Vladyslav was killed. Unfortunately, he did not live to see the final result.

Forever in the ranks
Kalan “Frenchman” Vladyslav
22 June 2001 – 28 June 2025

Sofiia Kozlova is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice explores visual and conceptual camouflage and its role within the landscape of war. She focuses on the materiality of camouflage nets and on how handmade structures become a new form of nature along the frontline. At the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kozlova founded and led a volunteer centre producing camouflage for the Ukrainian Defence Forces. Over the past several years, her artistic practice has been shaped by reflecting on the experiences emerging from this ongoing volunteer work. The repetitive gestures of weaving, tying, and working with material acquire a vernacular significance in her work, embodying the experience of collective action as it gradually becomes part of everyday life. She explores these themes primarily through installation and performative practice. In 2023, she completed her Master’s thesis titled “The Site-Specificity of Volunteer Spaces and Their Impact on the Environment.”

Photographer: Anton Sorochak