Leliuk, Nastasiia / Wiernik, Natalia: Once a Year the Stick Shoots once a year the stick shoots is a powerful photographic project created by two female photographers — Nastasiia Leliuk (Ukraine) and Natalia Wiernik (Poland) — who together explore how war shapes our perception of imagery, language, and symbols. Coming from different contexts but sharing a similar sensitivity, they construct a visual manifesto of memory, resistance, and empathy.
The title is a play on words. In English, “to shoot” means both “to sprout” and “to fire a weapon.” In this duality lies the heart of their narrative — about violence and about life continuing even in the darkest of times. Set against a stark black background — like a stage stripped of scenery — the photographs are striking and evocative: branches that resemble rifles, placed beside images of real guns and assault weapons, instruments of actual destruction. This visual contrast unsettles, provokes thought, and confronts the innocence of childhood play with the cruelty of war. The photographers oppose the natural gesture of growth to the destructive gesture of violence. 
The project is inspired by the 2022 work Once a Year the Stick Shoots by Nastasiia Leliuk and developed by Natalia Wiernik. The original work was first presented as an installation in the 2023 exhibition HOW ARE YOU, a continuation of the Welcome project curated by Natalia Wiernik. en., fr., uk., offset print, softcover with cloth-covered spine, 104p, 6.5 x 8.9 inch, Ed. of 850, Warschau, 2025, Blow Up Press Request of availability backnext