A front door, scorched and bombed during the war in Ukraine, has been made into an art installation by a Purbeck artist, to focus on the Ukraine families who came to the UK, including Swanage, after their country was attacked by Russia in February 2022.
Artist Rob Marshall who lives in Wareham and works in Swanage in Dorset, wants the sculpture to make people consider what if the bomb, which caused this damage, landed on their doorstep?
Little is left of the residential boroughs of Toretsk in Ukraine after three years of Russian attacks
An empty shell where no one lives
The art installation – as yet unnamed – will be exhibited in Dorchester and Bath but Rob Marshall is hoping it will go on a wider tour of the UK during 2025, including some local dates near Swanage and Wareham.
The door, from the eastern Ukrainian town of Toretsk, bears scorch marks from the heat of the blast, a hole blown right through it and a mangled mess where the lock once was.
Toretsk, which three years ago was a mining town in the eastern Donbas region with a population three times the size of Swanage, is now an empty shell where no one lives any longer.
Nothing is known about the family which once lived behind the door now mounted on a plinth of rubble by Rob, but he says that the story is so much more than about the fate of one family.
All that remains of the home where Ukrainian soldiers collected the artwork door
“How could I get a door from a war zone?”
Rob Marshall said:
“I had the idea for my installation at the beginning of the war – I use a lot of reclaimed materials and use doors a lot in my work to represent portals between the inner self and the outer world.
“I was thinking about how I could get a door from a war zone for a while, to make the message, what if this bomb actually landed outside our own doorstep?
“I tried contacting local aid groups that make charity runs to the Ukraine, but was told it was too dangerous to go near the front line.
“However there’s a Ukranian refugee, Yuliia, who works for the Grand Hotel in Swanage, who’s been forced to leave her home and move here to earn money for her family back in Ukraine.
“Her husband is still in Ukraine and her daughters are in Poland, so she is part of the disruption that this war has caused.
“Yuliia said she would see if there was anything her husband could do in Ukraine, he made contact with the soldiers in Donestsk and when a lull came in the fighting they went out to the town of Toretsk to get me a couple of doors.”
The shell of the home in Toretsk, whose occupants fled a long time ago
“I had to get a Geiger counter”
Rob added:
“I had to find a courier from Ukraine who would drive the doors to London where I could collect them.
“But when I got the door here, I suddenly realised there had been talk of chemical warfare by the Russians so I had to get a Geiger counter to make sure that no depleted uranium had been used.
“Thankfully, it was clean and safe to put in my garage, but these are things that the Ukrainians are having to deal with all the time.
“I usually do something with my doors, but this one says it all just the way it is, so I didn’t want to touch it. I made a stand with the minimum amount of structure, it was going to have a fancy base, but then I thought it should be standing on rubble.
“The door just resonated with me. Sometimes I think things are bigger than art, and this is one of those times – if I did anything to the door, I would just be detracting from the message.”
Bath Abbey, where the installation will go on show in October 2025 at the end of an intended UK tour
A voice for all refugees
The door will be a part of the Harmony Festival of flowers, art and music taking place in Dorchester in June 2025, and will be installed in Bath Abbey in Somerset in October 2025, towards the end of what Rob hopes will be a UK wide tour.
But to start off, he hopes that local places would be prepared to display his art – in the past, he has exhibited works at Durlston Country Park, Corfe Castle and, memorably, on the beach at Swanage.
He is hoping that his Ukraine door can become a monument to all the innocent casualties of war, a voice for all refugees who have been silenced by their aggressors, and a platform for an important story to be told.
On Monday 24th February 2025 it is the third anniversary of Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, which will be marked with an event in Trafalgar Square in London, and in countless other cities and countries across Europe. Dorset Council will be flying the Ukrainian flag at County Hall in Dorchester to show its continued support and solidarity for the country.
Another view of Toretsk, a once prosperous mining town which had 30,000 residents
There are few images of humanity left in Toretsk any longer
“I try to keep politics out of it”
Rob Marshall said:
“This Ukranian door is probably my most important piece of work, but I don’t see it as political – I try to keep the politics out of it, I just see humanity and I try to get a voice out for the common people.
“I consider myself an environmental artist and a humanitarian artist, that’s what my work tries to get out there, I’m aiming to put across the bigger message and in this case that’s the voices of a people whose lives have been destroyed.
“It’s not just meant to be an artwork, I am talking to the Ukrainians who now live in our communities in Swanage and across Dorset, I want them to write their stories down, why they are here, because they are not being heard at the moment.
“Many Ukrainians I talk to have little interest in politics but just want to live a peaceful life in the safety of their own homes, to bring up a family, go to school, perhaps to go to university – the same family values as us. I feel it is so important to give these people a voice.”
Rob Marshall with his sculpture Custodian on Swanage Beach in January 2024
Portals between worlds
Rob Marshall has exhibited many sculptures in the past, working with recycled materials to draw attention to the plight of the natural environment.
He has also used doors in the past as portals between worlds, such as the pop-up artwork Custodian on Swanage Beach in January 2024.
That environmental work portrayed a man running through the door, leaving one world behind and entering another while reconnecting with the natural world, as shown by butterflies alighting on him.
Rob Marshall’s bottle tree, made from a year’s worth of plastic waste, popped up in Corfe Castle among other locations over summer 2024
Further information
- Any location interested in hosting the artwork can contact Rob Marshall via his Facebook page
