When The Smoke Clears
Svet Jacqueline
Since February 2022, the conflict in Ukraine has profoundly altered everyday life across the country. As the situation has continued, civilians have been required to adapt to prolonged uncertainty and disruption.
Schools have moved underground, with classes held in basements or conducted online. Public and private buildings have been repurposed into rehabilitation centres, stabilisation points, and temporary medical facilities. Families have adjusted their homes to seek shelter from ongoing risks, often sleeping in hallways or underground spaces, unsure of what the following day may bring.
Significant portions of Ukraine’s infrastructure have been damaged, and economic pressures have intensified existing vulnerabilities. Alongside physical destruction, the prolonged crisis has contributed to growing mental health and accessibility challenges, as many people live with long-term injuries and displacement.
Yet daily life continues. Children attend lessons below ground and still find moments to play. Individuals recovering from severe injuries form new families and redefine their futures with the support of medical care and assistive technologies. Women increasingly carry expanded responsibilities within households, balancing work, caregiving, and survival.
This project focuses on the ways ordinary life persists amid disruption. While much attention is directed toward the front lines, many of the most enduring stories unfold in homes, schools, workplaces, and shared spaces. When the Smoke Clears seeks to make visible these quieter moments of endurance—experiences rarely captured in headlines, yet central to understanding how people continue to live, adapt, and rebuild.
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Svet Jacqueline is a documentary photographer raised in Baltimore, Maryland. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Photography from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. As a child adopted from Kirov, Russia, her work focuses on the impact of trauma and displacement experienced by families and young adults in conflict zones. She has been based in Kyiv, Ukraine, since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, working with international news outlets, non-profits, Leica Camera, and Zuma Press.