For those who know it, the Ukrainian steppe is not a scorched wasteland, but a living landscape undulating with kurgans—the tombs of ancestors—capable of rising again after every fire and war. On early modern maps, the Ukrainian steppe was labeled Wild Field or Campi Deserti. This area, beyond the reach of centralized power, became the cradle of the Cossack Sich and anti-imperial movements.

However, romanticized notions (such as Byron’s poem Mazeppa) and the Soviet narrative of “empty territory” served to justify colonial conquest. In reality, the steppe is the cradle of civilizations, a place of cultural exchange, and a battlefield—right up to the present-day Russian aggression.

The exhibition Camporum Desertorum tells this story through the voices of locals: Ukrainian female artists living in the Czech Republic and members of the 128th “Wild Field” Brigade, who traded their creative work for the defense of their homeland. Instead of a poster, the brochure features three poems translated for the first time. The project challenges external stereotypes about peripheral regions and brings to light those who have long gone unheard.