The exhibition “That Flower Looks Like a Drone” is based on a series of painting workshops that Danish artist Eske Touborg organized in Kyiv together with Ukrainian children who have been liberated from Russian-occupied areas. During the workshops, 20 metres of canvas was rolled out together with acrylics and spray paint which resulted in joyful painting sessions where the children had the chance to be children again.

After the workshops the canvas roll was brought back to Denmark where Touborg cut out ten squares from the canvas. These squares were mounted on frames and Touborg finalized the artworks with blurred portraits of the children on top of the previous background painted by the children during the workshops.

The works are a combination of the children’s playful and vividly painted backgrounds and Touborg’s blurred portraits of the children. The result is a striking contrast between the children’s erased identities, shaped by years of Russian indoctrination, and the childhood that is inevitably pushed into the background as a consequence.

By blurring the children’s faces, Touborg visualizes the systematic erasure many abducted children have endured: new names, new languages and new loyalties forcibly imposed upon them. In a time where identity has become a battleground in Ukraine the children’s joyful backgrounds are an insistent claim to their right to simply be kids.

The title of the exhibition is a direct quote from one of the children who, after painting a flower, spontaneously remarked: ‘That flower looks like a drone.’ The project is non-profit and all profits from sold paintings will be donated to Save Ukraine.

The exhibition opens at the Bastion of the Vilnius Defence Wall on May 20, 2026, at 6 PM and will run until September 6, 2026.

Photos by Silvestras Samsonas, National Museum of Lithuania

Organizer
National Museum of Lithuania

Sponsor
Danish Cultural Institute in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

Media partner
JCDecaux

Author
Eske Touborg

Project lead
Indrė Gervelytė

Architect and graphic designer
Ieva Cicėnaitė

Editor
Marytė Slušinskaitė

Education coordinators
Adomas Gricius, Rūta Tolkačevskienė

Communications and marketing
Akvilė Matulionytė, Raminta Pakšytė, Aušra Straševičienė, Jurga Strimaitienė