We Are Just Numbers came to life for the first time during the summer of 2022 as a response to the Russian atrocities and genocide committed against the people of Ukraine.
The primary inspirations for the project were the marks on the walls of the building and basements where about 400 civilian people were held by force for 25 days in the village of Yahidne. People would mark the dead together with the calendar using chalk, charcoal, and pens on the walls of the basement.[1] The primary reasons for death were the torture, unsanitary, hypoxia, and absence of any medications. [2]
"Seven days after the invasion of Ukraine, Russian troops entered the village of Yahidne. They forced the residents out of their homes and into the basement of the local school, which they had turned into their headquarters. Until they withdrew on March 30, 2022, the Russians kept almost the entire population of Yahidne—more than 360 people, including children and the elderly—in that basement for nearly a month.
It was so cramped, people had to sleep sitting up. Instead of a toilet, there were buckets. Food had to be foraged. There was no ventilation, so the oldest went crazy and died. The Russians did not allow the dead to be buried immediately, and when they finally did, they fired on the funeral."

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The idea was to display a series of numbers resembling killed civilians as an art performance. As people casually walk by the numbers, they would possibly ignore them, the same way they are ignoring the genocide in Ukraine. Additionally, the numbers are an allusion to how Ukrainian casualties are portrayed in the everyday media as numbers and not as real people.
With each performance that we re-perform, we are trying to reach some amount of numbers that would resemble the number of civilians killed in some place or Ukraine overall, with the primary place of depiction being Mariupol.
While performing the first performance in June on the 100th day of the war, it was assumed that the number of killed civilians in Mariupol was around ten thousand to twenty thousand [3]. However, there is information that the death toll is approximately eighty thousand[4] to one hundred and twenty thousand civilians.[5]
The overall number of killed civilians is still unclear, and there are many different claims from official and unofficial sources.
The project's additional inspirations were Yayoi Kusama's Narcissus Garden, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and Yad Vashem's Hall of Names. 

[1] Oslavska, Svitlana. "A Ukrainian Village's Month in Captivity in a Basement." Time. Time, February 15, 2023. https://time.com/6255183/ukraine-basement-yahidne-held-captive/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_term=ideas_ukraine&linkId=201593226. 
[2] Suspilne, "People Were Tortured and Killed: a Report from the Village of Yagidne near Chernigov [Ягідне в Умовах Війни: Як Жили Місцеві}," Suspilne Media, April 8, 2022, https://suspilne.media/226704-ludej-katuvali-i-vbivali-reportaz-iz-sela-agidne-bila-cernigova/.
[3] Андрій Горбенкополітолог et al., "There May Be More than 22,000 Dead Civilians of Mariupol - the City Hall [Загиблих Мирних Жителів Маріуполя Може Бути Понад 22 Тисячі – Мерія]," Slovo i Dilo [Слово і Діло], May 25, 2022, https://www.slovoidilo.ua/2022/05/25/novyna/suspilstvo/zahyblyx-myrnyx-zhyteliv-mariupolya-mozhe-buty-22-tysyachi-meriya.
[4] 5th Channel UA, “87,000 Dead Have Been Documented in Mariupol, but the Figure Is Not Final - Mass Media [У Маріуполі Задокументовано 87 Тисяч Загиблих, Але Цифра Не Остаточна – ЗМІ],” 5th Channel UA (5th Channel UA, August 29, 2022), https://www.5.ua/regiony/u-mariupoli-zadokumentovano-87-tysiach-zahyblykh-ale-tsyfra-ne-ostatochna-zmi-286225.html.
[5] Sophia Kalan, “More than 100,000 People Died in Mariupol. The Exhumation Will Never End - an Interview with Mykola Osychenko [В Маріуполі Понад 100 000 Загиблих. Ексгумація Ніколи Не Завершиться – Інтерв'ю з Миколою Осиченком],” Bukvy [Букви] (Bukvy [Букви], September 30, 2022), https://bykvu.com/ua/mysli/v-mariupoli-ponad-100-000-zahyblykh-ekshumatsiia-nikoly-ne-zavershytsia-interv-iu-z-mykoloiu-osychenkom/.