‘Coal Mine, Land Mine, The Body of Mine’ is a deeply personal, poetic, and politically charged reflection on industrial extraction, war, ecological ruptures, and embodied memory, all set within the context of Eastern Ukraine.

The book critically examines the environmental and political legacies of imperialism in Eastern Europe, focusing on the militarisation of land and its transformation into a resource. Focusing on my home region, Donbas, which is rich in mineral deposits and has been scarred by war, I explore the intersection of industrial modernity with memory, violence, and resistance.

This book is about finding light in a dark world. I navigate spaces of invisibility, seeking ways to illuminate them. It asks: How does the invisible become visible? Who remains unable to see, and at what point does invisibility persist? The emergence of visibility is attuned to the presence and voices of bodies that exist beyond the extractive and militarised operations that are shaping Eastern Ukraine. What frequencies do these voices register as the first signs of light emerge?

This book explores the history of mining and industrialisation in eastern Ukraine, drawing on images and documents from Belgian and Ukrainian archives, including paintings, drawings and grassroots photography. These include Nikolay Kasatkin’s paintings of Donbas coal miners from the 1880s, which portray the industrial transformation of the region and the hidden, subterranean world beyond the reach of human vision.

The publication features black images printed on black paper, intentionally withholding visibility of the industrial workforce and the geopolitical forces that shaped them, echoing the silence and erasure at the heart of extractive histories.

Stefaniia Bodnia, Designer
Royal Academy of Ar, the Hague