Matthieu Chazal: Fault Lines

22.04.2025 - 11.05.2025

Odesa • Photo Exhibition

This exhibition pays tribute to Matthieu Chazal (1975–2024), a French photographer whose work captured the delicate balance between beauty and devastation across the borderlands of East and West. A traveller, a philosopher, and a passionate observer of life, Chazal spent nearly two decades journeying from the Balkans to the Caucasus, from Greece to Ukraine, from Turkey to Iran—chronicling moments of tenderness, resilience, and joy in places fractured by war.

Though he refused the label of “war photographer,” Chazal’s work offers a hauntingly human perspective on modern conflict. War, in his images, appears only in traces—a ruined bridge, a torn umbrella—while life takes centre stage: soldiers napping, children playing, lovers embracing, strangers sharing meals. His photographs are not about war, but about surviving it—and about living fully in its shadow.

Matthieu Chazal first came to Odessa in 2011, and returned many times after the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022. He fell deeply in love with the city. Together, we dreamed of building a house of photography here. Matthieu is no longer with us, but the dream remains.

This exhibition is made possible by the Sutasoma Foundation, with the generous support of Ukrainian Cosmopolis (Odessa), Galerie HEGOA, Galerie Taylor, Picto, Imprimerie Escourbiac, Éditions Odyssée, and the Centre National des Arts Plastiques (CNAP).

Come walk through these fragile, luminous moments—snapshots of life at the edge of collapse, and a tribute to a photographer who searched for grace in the unlikeliest of places.

Ukrainian Cosmopolis Conference

21.12.2024

Odesa • Zoom (hybrid)

In this colloquium, we reflected on Ukraine's cosmopolitan experience and ideas, from Dragomanov’s concepts to the movements of people in and out of the country after 1991 and again following 2/22. Our focus was on Odesa’s cosmopolitan legacy and the role of Jews in connecting the city and country to the wider world. Rather than viewing Odesa as a challenge for Ukraine’s future, we explored it as a solution—a model and microcosm of a richly diverse, outward-looking European Ukraine. 
We concluded with a discussion on cosmopolitanism as a roadmap for Ukraine's national future—its potential as a national idea. 'Unity in diversity,' a concept central to both cosmopolitanism and the EU, is often dismissed as a cliché, yet it remains a paradox. How can diversity sustain or even tolerate unity? And where do its unifying resources lie?