Natalya Vorozhbyt

During her residency at the IWM, Natalya Vorozhbyt is working on a new play in which she reflects on her own experience and the experience of her compatriots during the war in Ukraine. Some remained to defend their cities, some went missing or died, some took cover in bomb shelters, some found themselves in Russian-occupied territory, some went abroad as refugees, and some were lucky enough to be offered a fellowship or residency abroad. Ukrainians have both a shared and a strictly personal experience of this war. Those who left, for example, deal with survivor’s guilt. Vorozhbyt’s project grapples with this, seeking to capture experiences that none of us deserve and that should have been averted in the first place.

The title of her new play is "Green Corridors," addressing the temporary demilitarized zones designed to ensure the safe transit of humanitarian aid to, and of refugees from the crisis region. Today, these kinds of corridors exist in various cities in Ukraine surrounded by Russian troops. But they do not always provide security – many people die from Russian shelling when they pass through this corridor.