Lesia Synychenko is a Ukrainian artist, poet, former journalist, and mixed-media practitioner whose work moves between painting, text, diary, and cultural testimony. Her practice, including The Morphing, explores home, war, women, language, joy, memory, and survival through acrylic, ink, collage, clay, and symbolic figures. Shaped by journalism, Ukrainian inheritance, Chernihiv, diaspora, and wartime displacement, she treats art as contact: a way to preserve stories, create cultural diplomacy, and return emotionally home under war’s pressure today.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Lesia Synychenko discuss journalism, art, cultural translation, and war reporting. Synychenko recalls writing 50 articles, interviewing punk musicians and a Catholic priest, leaving journalism for art, and valuing deep contact over rapid news. Jacobsen reflects on long-term reporting in Ukraine, objectivity, language barriers, technology, religious messaging, and cultural humility. Together, they frame art and journalism as overlapping forms of testimony, survival, diplomacy, and public memory during wartime in Ukraine’s cultural crisis.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What did you do as a journalist?
Lesia Synychenko: Yes, it is process. When I worked as a journalist, I first worked for a newspaper.
Jacobsen: How much did you write back then?
Synychenko: I wrote 50 articles. I was learning in school, and 50 articles is a lot. I worked many times as a journalist, but I was always creating paintings. My mother is an artist, and my father is a journalist. I combine those things.
Jacobsen: You mentioned this yesterday as well.
Synychenko: But maybe, for the last 12 years, I have not worked as a journalist. Sometimes, I worked as an editor, but now, no. Now, I work only as an artist.
Jacobsen: What did you like, or not like, about journalism?
Synychenko: In journalism, I liked when I could speak with people and share their stories. For me, people and their stories are most interesting. I like people in general. That part of journalism was very interesting for me. At first, I communicated with my subjects, who were punk musicians. The next subject was a Catholic priest.
I really liked speaking with different people and sharing their stories. I liked reporting. For me, that was very interesting. But later, journalism changed. It became news, news, news, not deep. That is not interesting to read, and not interesting to write.
Jacobsen: That is a really good point. If you stopped about 12 years ago, that timing makes sense.
Synychenko: It is also about personality, because I need to create contact. For me, that is really very interesting. But now, in Ukraine, there is a problem with newspapers. Many newspapers have died. This is a real problem.
Jacobsen: It is the same problem everywhere. In Ukraine, too, the industry is changing.
Synychenko: Yes. But when I visited Portugal, people went to cafés in the morning, took a newspaper, and read. For me, that was important because I like newspapers. I worked in a time with no internet. Now everything is very fast, fast, fast, and there is no time for thinking.
Jacobsen: That is the hard part: the exhaustion, the lack of time. As a journalist, there is an incredible amount of work. I work morning to night almost every day, except when an ill day once in a while becoming a slower day. There is travel and fieldwork. So self-care, proper sleep, proper diet, and reducing stress become harder, but they are possible. It just takes planning. As a credentialed journalist, I find the difficulty is that my horizons change, time, distance, looking forward. Instead of thinking, “I will do this today, this next week, this in one month, this in six months,” it becomes, “What do I do now, this afternoon, this evening, maybe tomorrow?” Next week becomes much more speculative. Timelines also change during the day. I have to call someone: “We have had a delay. Can we postpone by 15 minutes?” Then, “Okay, good. See you then.” Or, “I will be unable to make the meeting today. Can we postpone until the same time next week? If we need to change it, we will touch base.” And then, on to the next thing, constantly.
I have a very high work capacity and endurance. The constant shifting, the evolving landscape, that is what requires adaptation. The workload itself is not the issue; I am used to that. It is the constant change. Here, I have immediate access to very high-profile people across many sectors, and also to everyday people. It is a valuable experience, being in a new country and speaking with such a wide range of individuals. How you speak to an artist is different from how you speak to a scientist, a politician, or a project manager. Ukrainians, in my experience, have been very good overall. Maybe one or two difficult interactions, but nothing extreme. Even those moments have value, unpleasant, but instructive. The analogy I use is baseball. Even the best players, like Babe Ruth, only hit about one out of three pitches. So, if you imagine coming into a new cultural context and succeeding in every interaction, every day, for months, that is unrealistic. It is not if mistakes happen socially or culturally; it is when. The real question is how you respond. My approach is to apologize when necessary, and to be honest. For example, if I am speaking with a religious person who finds atheism troubling, I will not pretend, otherwise. I will be honest, but without judgment. Earlier in my career, I might have withdrawn, become quiet, like a turtle retreating into its shell. Now, I engage more openly. I grew up in an evangelical Christian environment. The reactions to non-belief, the facial expressions, the emotional responses, are similar across contexts. I have seen the same reactions here as elsewhere. That tells me something not about Ukraine or Canada, but about human beings. We are tribal. Certain ideologies, including religion, can sometimes foster that tribalism. That is not always negative, but it can be. So, I try to be both honest and diplomatic in these interactions. For instance, politicians often use religious language. In the United States, many politicians publicly identify as Christian, even if their behavior does not always reflect that. It becomes a kind of cultural signaling. In my personal view, Volodymyr Zelenskyy appears to act more ethically than Donald Trump. But he is still a politician. He uses the language of the culture. In the United States, the dominant language is broadly Christian. In Ukraine, it is also Christian, though within different traditions. In wartime, invoking phrases like “God is on our side” can serve to build national solidarity and provide hope. At the same time, it raises a simple question: how can one know that? It is a claim to knowledge that cannot be verified. From a journalistic standpoint, the task is not to affirm or deny such claims, but to examine them critically, to understand their role in communication, morale, and collective identity.
In journalism, things can be true in different ways at the same time. It can sound idealistic, but many things that seem paradoxical can still both be true. For example, Volodymyr Zelenskyy may be a believer and say, “God is on our side.” At the same time, we can say objectively that no one truly knows. So we can ask: how do you know? From there, we can understand this as political messaging, something that builds solidarity among the public. And even if the claim itself cannot be verified, it can still be true that, subjectively, for many Christian Ukrainians, hearing this from a leader during hardship helps them emotionally. So in the short term, that message can be subjectively helpful. And that sense of hope becomes an objective fact about their emotional state. It may seem paradoxical, but multiple truths can coexist. For me personally, that kind of messaging does not do much, but I can understand and empathize with how it helps others. Returning to the earlier point: I have had one or two difficult interactions with Ukrainians, but nothing serious. Over more than 120 days, only two difficult experiences, that is a very good average. And those moments are important. They help improve my cultural literacy and deepen my understanding of Ukraine.
Synychenko: Yes… because when you stay longer in Ukraine, you understand more. I do not remember the name of the person who said this, but the idea is that when you stay, you begin to understand.
Jacobsen: Yes, that is part of it. That is very important for journalism. Both short-term and long-term journalism in war have value.
Synychenko: Yes.
Jacobsen: Short-term journalists serve a purpose. If someone comes for a limited time, they may actually be more objective. And if journalists choose to go to a war zone, whether Ukraine, Syria, Ethiopia, Gaza, Iran, that choice itself says something about their character. Short-term reporting captures immediacy. Long-term presence builds depth and understanding. Both are necessary.
Yes, that has a purpose for news. I think being submerged, or immersed, in the culture is helpful when offering commentary. Those one or two difficult moments also help me shift my tone. I take them into account. Of course, I would prefer coffee and conversation. Anyone would. If someone enjoys conflict, something is wrong psychologically. But there is value in those moments if they are treated as lessons. One thing I do know about Ukrainians is that a large part of the cultural war, not the kinetic war of missiles, bullets, tanks, and jets, is about language. For me, not being a fluent Ukrainian speaker can be a sensitive point. But I am not great with languages. I have certain talents, and in other areas, I am ordinary. Modern technology helps reduce those barriers. The translations are not perfect, but they are constantly improving. Ukrainian has millions of speakers. English has hundreds of millions. That gives computer systems a lot of data to learn from. For someone like me, where language is not my strongest area, technology lowers the barrier. It helps my journalism professionally, and it helps the people I interview. In the past, someone might say, “I do not speak English,” or “I cannot do the interview,” or “I cannot afford a translator or interpreter.” Now, we can use almost any format. I can type the questions in English, translate them into Ukrainian, and present them. They can answer in Ukrainian. I can record it, transcribe it, translate it, edit it for clarity, and send the transcript back to them: “Is this what you meant?” If they say, more or less, yes, then good. That interview would not have happened before. So, technology has many more positives than negatives. I compare it to hot and cold running water. Tsars 200 years ago did not have hot and cold running water the way many ordinary people do now. Roman emperors did not have what ordinary people now take for granted: the ability to boil water immediately in many countries. That would have seemed almost godlike two millennia ago. I try to frame technology as neutral, then look at the benefits while still recognizing the negatives. There can also be commentary about people coming here just for professional reasons. But journalists could choose to write about fashion, weddings, or sports. If they choose to go to war, that says something. They did not have to. At the same time, one should not be naive. I could go to many wars. I could do many different things with my skills. But here, there can be multiple purposes. I think going to a war is the right thing to do, and I am also a practical person. I only recently started using LinkedIn and Facebook to share my work. Before, those were just personal pages. But as things evolve professionally, you have to share your material so people can read it. Fundamentally, this is a job. I get paid, and that allows me to do the work. But it also contributes to things I think are important. I do not see those as contradictory. You do your painting, and you did your journalism. These things matter to you. If you did not produce work that sold, that would be a problem too, I think.
Synychenko: Painting does not sell regularly.
Jacobsen: Right. But many of your themes are Ukrainian culture, war, and history. These matter to you. Similarly, I think when a handful of Ukrainians make commentaries about journalism, they are often applying one kind of thinking to another context. I think journalism is entirely legitimate. People have to put food on the table. They do not want to be homeless. They are lucky if they get to do something they think is important. I do interviews. My dream is doing interviews. I love conversation. I get to work in journalism, which is my favourite profession, and I get to work on human rights, secularism, science, and the arts. I love this work. I also get to do it in a risky area, where there is a chance of death or injury. I can use my skills and talents in a profession I like, on topics I care about. I get paid, and I can advance professionally at the same time. Many Ukrainians also want their stories told, and conversation is an accessible way to do that. That is a rare win-win-win. So, from a compassionate view, some commentaries, very rare ones, misunderstand what journalism is and what it means for a person to have a job.
Synychenko: Do you know this phrase? Journalism is the second-oldest profession. When I was a child, I asked: what is the first profession?
Jacobsen: I used to work as a dishwasher, food-prep worker, restaurant morning set-up person, busser, delivery worker, cashier, janitor, landscaper, gardener, ranch hand with horses, and briefly in the Canadian military. Those jobs essentially funded the journalism and the writing. So, to your point, it is difficult, but if you have a dream and it matters—
Synychenko: Yes, I understand. For me also, I had to choose: artist or journalist. Now I do not work in journalism, but I continue writing texts.
Jacobsen: Yes. I think, for good and bad reasons, there is some anti-Western sentiment now. On one hand, Western countries fail to live up to their ideals. On the other hand, they also do fulfil many of those ideals. So both things can be true. Returning to the earlier point: short-term journalism can have benefits because people do not become emotionally entangled. For a global audience, the news they receive may be more objective, but also more superficial. When you stay longer, you meet people and begin to care. Over time, you get more emotional texture. The difficulty then becomes separating the factual nature from the emotional texture, like a centrifuge. But that takes time. If people do not want to translate, and they want to have a Ukrainian conversation among Ukrainians in Ukrainian, I sit quietly, go on my phone, and do my other work. I take out my laptop and edit. I share my work on social media. I do not want to be a bother, so I become like a fly on the wall. I am quiet and polite, but that can sometimes be seen as distance. It is not distance. I am simply reading the moment: you are having a conversation, so I should not intrude. It is similar with non-empirical beliefs, around the occult, the afterlife, whether prayer works, and so on. I can listen to people describe how they use those beliefs, and I can describe that with empathy, but I do not have to endorse those beliefs myself. So that centrifuge becomes more complicated. But if I have time to sit down and listen, then I can separate things properly. But it takes time. Another important point I wanted to get across in the transcript is that these are all conversations I have had, and I think they are important.
Synychenko: Do you speak French?
Jacobsen: Not yet. That is another thing, right? I do not even speak French fluently, and I am Canadian. So it is the same kind of commentary. Someone in Ukraine might say, “Why do you come to Ukraine and not speak Ukrainian?” And then I could say, “If you go to Canada, do you speak French?” If the answer is no, then, come on. But I do not want that to sound dismissive. There are conveniences of translation, but it is a different context. Not everyone had the privilege of getting a law degree or that kind of linguistic education. I grew up in a working-class family. I know people here whose families are extremely wealthy, their fathers may be worth 100 or 200 million US dollars, maybe three or four billion hryvnias. That creates a gap. If someone comes from a wealthy family, they may assume everyone has access to the same things. But people do not. It is different. So, with short-term journalism, objectivity can sometimes be improved because there is more separation between emotion and fact. With a longer stay, you add texture. We already covered the language point. Those are some of the main things I think are important for whoever eventually reads this. We have also talked about messaging and the texture of your art. I will add the material you sent me too.
Synychenko: Now, I am thinking about myself. I also share my art as journalism, because when I see people’s reactions, many people respond very strongly.
Jacobsen: How do you feel when they react?
Synychenko: People tell me they feel happy. I do not know, maybe because life is very hard. When they see my work, they feel joy.
Jacobsen: More joy, with more wine and chocolate. I saw artists sleeping in their studios after drinking too much. Some people think of war as only dreary, like a cloudy, rainy, cold day. That is certainly part of it for many people, but people also find joy. They find it in different ways, in spite of everything. That is the admirable part.
Synychenko: Without joy, many people would have died years ago. Life is very hard, but joy helps. When I go abroad, sometimes I think I am creating cultural diplomacy, because I take my art and speak with people. I try to come back to Ukraine, because here I feel better than abroad. In Finland and Portugal, many people came to me and told me to stay there. They told me, “Do not come back to Ukraine.” But when I spoke about people in Ukraine, they asked, “What are you saving?” I cannot say it well, but it is my country. Ukraine keeps something for me. It is very strange, but it is true.
Jacobsen: Another important point that has come across, in these very long interview sessions, as you have experienced, is that in conversations with civilians and artists, many artists went to the front line: filmmakers, journalists, and other creative people.
Synychenko: Yes.
Jacobsen: Many died. Others are still alive but are in the military because the country has to survive. Others died financially, in a sense. It is war. The market disappeared, or it was cut off, so they left art to do something more practical. There are different ways this happens. Overall, the effect is that civic culture is reduced. That has been a subtle point made to me. I have not explored it extensively, although I have spoken with many artists, cultural workers, and journalists. But what does reduced civic culture do to a culture under stress? For artists, art is obviously expression and almost therapeutic. For the public, a good writer or speaker can offer guidance and clarity. A good artist can offer relief and reflection. So when that civic culture is reduced, the emotional toll of war may become heavier. I would probably need a psychologist to explore that properly, but you see where I am going. Reduced civil culture in war can make the emotional burden of war bigger.
Synychenko: For artists and writers, maybe it is simpler because they can share these emotions. For many people who cannot, it is harder. In Ukraine, many people use antidepressants because it is very difficult.
Jacobsen: I was told an opinion about Ukrainian substance use and how it compares with other cultures. Substance use itself is not unusual, but during the Soviet period, drinking, especially among men, was very mainstream. That created unusually high levels of alcohol use. We see this even more clearly in the Russian Federation, where men’s life expectancy has often been much lower than women’s.
Synychenko: My grandmother was from Ukraine, but her family moved to Kyrgyzstan. They lived in Kyrgyzstan. They wanted to come back to Ukraine, but it was very difficult to get passports and documents, so they moved again in Kyrgyzstan. When I was a child, we flew to Kyrgyzstan every summer. But when the Chechen War began, the First Chechen War began in December 1994, something changed with flights from Kyiv. And we went to Kyrgyzstan by train from Moscow. I saw Moscow, another world. But I also saw Russian people. This was very different from Ukraine. Really, for me, it was… In Moscow, no, because Moscow is… other people go to Moscow. But the train goes through Russia, the Volga, Kazakhstan, and then Kyrgyzstan. I remember everything from this trip.
Jacobsen: The trains in Russia can take days and days.
Synychenko: Yes. Moscow and St. Petersburg are more modern; all the money goes there. But what about the villages? How do they look compared to the city? This is very strange. It is very old. These were very strange people for me. I remember that strange level now, because it is really very difficult. Ukrainian villages, not now, but always, Ukrainian people would draw flowers on the walls. They would decorate the home and garden with many flowers. In Russia, I did not see this, because all the houses were very dark. For me, as a child, this was my feeling, not my feeling now, but my childhood feeling. When I was a child, I thought, ‘It is fine that I do not live in Russia,’ because in Kazakhstan people also lived very badly. There was desert, sand, many beautiful words for sand. Sometimes people had water and used it to wash sand away, because there was only sand. But people in Kazakhstan were very kind, very friendly. In Kyrgyzstan also. This was very strange for me. And now we feel this mood.
Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Lesia.
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Scott Douglas Jacobsen is a Writer-Editor for The Good Men Project with more than 1,900 publications on the platform. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343; 978-1-0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018-7399; Online: ISSN, 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719-6337), A Further Inquiry (SubStack), Vocal, Medium, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bank at In-Sight Publishing comprised of more than 10,000 articles, interviews, and republications, in more than 200 outlets. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic fellowships, and currently serves on several boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), and Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20-0708028), and others.
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Photo by Scott Douglas Jacobsen
