You Destroy. We Create | The war on Ukraine’s culture

The bombardment of images documenting the devastation across Ukraine have become all too familiar. But only six months into the war, in the summer of 2022, the team from NowHere Media took 360- and 180-degree cameras behind the frontlines in Ukraine to bear witness to another kind of fight: the cultural battlefield. Their resulting VR film, You Destroy. We Create | The war on Ukraine’s culture, bravely brings audiences close to Ukrainian artists and cultural workers who are protecting, rebuilding, and generating art in a time of crisis. With grace and solidarity, using VR technology, drones, and photogrammetry, they immerse audiences into scenes of destruction—and creation. The team takes us into an art museum in the line of fire, where, inside, curators fastidiously hide paintings. We land on the streets with an influential graffiti artist now spray-painting ingenious murals for the war effort. We immerse into a nocturnal countryside scene where a DJ drops beats under the stars at outdoor raves for youth who, by day, rebuild bombed-out villages stone by stone. For illuminating the power of culture and community in a time of war, and a nuanced, steady, transcendent use of 360-degree immersive VR filmmaking in a conflict zone, You Destroy. We Create | The war on Ukraine’s culture wins a Peabody Award.