Exhibition: “You Won’t Forget These Flowers” by Nicholas Dikkmans

Exhibition: “You Won’t Forget These Flowers”

Nicholas Dikkmans
December 6, 2025 – January 3, 2026

Nicholas Dikkmans was born in 1989 in Brussels. After working in the education sector, he turned to photography in 2022, coinciding with the start of the large-scale war in Ukraine.

Dikkmans works in humanist documentary photography, often with a humorous tone. Before his first trip to Kyiv in 2024, he explored various subjects: prisons, Mardi Gras festivals in southern Louisiana, Roma settlements in Macedonia, and everyday life in his hometown.

Ultimately, the artist decided to move to Ukraine to observe the lives of its citizens. His goal is to create a long-term project documenting the daily life of Ukrainians during the war.

The exhibition’s title, “You Won’t Forget These Flowers,” comes from a local legend and street artist Hamlet, who wrote the phrase next to a shrapnel strike on the pavement.

Which flowers are these?

• Those left on the graves of fallen soldiers.
• Those tended to by the elderly among bombed-out buildings, like in Saltivka.
• Those Ukrainians give to each other on any occasion.
• And those a woman in Mykolaiv promised as a sign, giving Russian soldiers sunflower seeds that will grow from the enemies after their death.

Flowers of hope or death, they serve as a reminder that life, in all its absurdity, continues its course in a country torn apart by war.

Curators: Daria Herasimova, Yevhen Danylenko

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