LMF 2026: Highlights of the Three-Day Conference
On May 14–16, the twelfth international conference LMF 2026 took place in Lviv. This year’s central theme was “Reality Under Attack: Flight, Freeze, or Fight”. The event gathered more than 700 participants from 36 countries.
The organizers announce the date of next year’s conference — LMF will take place on May 13–15, 2027.
“To become an adult is to realize that now it is my turn to reach out a hand to someone helpless. That the monsters under the bed will not disappear until I open my eyes and dare to meet their gaze. That the darkness in the room will not end until I turn on the light myself”, said Lviv Media Forum CEO Ola Myrovych during the opening of LMF 2026.
As tradition goes, LMF 2026 brought together Ukrainian and international media professionals working in the global environment — public intellectuals, researchers, politicians, representatives of civil society, and international organizations.
The conference program was built around two tracks: Frankly Spoken and Smartly Done. LMF 2026 featured more than 20 events, including discussions, speeches, and public interviews.
The keynote speaker of the program was Maksym Butkevych — a Ukrainian human rights defender, journalist, civic activist, and serviceman who was held in Russian captivity during the Russian-Ukrainian war. The recording of the opening ceremony is available here (in English).
“We can neither flee nor freeze when our reality is under attack. Because our reality is us. Because by fleeing or freezing — if we ever were to do so — we would continue to create a reality, but a completely different one: a reality of defeat, where we would have renounced our freedom and our fundamental values. Yet we would not be free of responsibility for it. We carry our reality with us, for ourselves and for others; we create it and bring it to life through interaction and conflict, through resilience and vulnerability, through disagreements and mutual support”, Maksym Butkevych emphasized.
The final conversation of the conference’s main program was traditionally dedicated to the future. This year, it featured Natalia Antelava, co-founder of the US-based media outlet Coda Story, and Ukrainian international journalist and co-founder of the Public Interest Journalism Lab Nataliya Gumenyuk. The discussion is available in video format.
“We need to rethink the fundamental journalistic artifact. It used to be the article. Now it is the insight. The question is: how do we make that insight travel through a broken and fragmented system?” Natalia Antelava shared.
Cultural Program of LMF 2026
The cultural program of the conference consisted of an exhibition and evening events program.
The conference venue featured an exhibition bringing together two major video projects and one video installation exploring how war is mediated through media.
Visitors could see the project “You Shouldn’t Have to See This” by Yarema Malashchuk and Roman Khimei, portraying Ukrainian children who were forcibly deported to Russia and later returned. In the video, they are filmed while asleep.
The exhibition also included the immersive video project “Land” by Oleksiy Sai and Yurii Gruzinov, which uses footage from Ukrainian soldiers’ body cameras to create a continuous panoramic view of the Ukrainian landscape. The work premiered at the 2026 Venice Biennale, and LMF became the first platform to present it afterwards.
In addition, visitors experienced Oleksiy Sai’s installation “Change or Die”. Using the aesthetics of corporate advertising and slogans, the installation raises questions about moral choice and how people perceive the war in Ukraine.
The exhibition was created in partnership with Jam Factory Art Center — a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in Lviv.
The events program of the cultural section featured performances by the band DvaTry x Symonenko from the Smyk community, which creates Ukrainian ethno-rave by combining traditional dance music with experimental electronic sound.
It also included DJ sets by poet and musician Hryhorii Semenchuk, featuring archival recordings of iconic twentieth-century Ukrainian poets’ voices as well as remixes from the Zhadan and Gurzhy album. One evening of the cultural program took place at villa Lomnytsia — an early twentieth-century architectural landmark in Lviv that, until recently, had been closed to visitors.
LMF 2026 is organized by the team of the NGO Lviv Media Forum. We would like to express our gratitude to our partners for supporting the conference.
Strategic partners: Ministry of Foreign Affairs Republic of China (Taiwan), Radio Taiwan International.
Event Partners: DW Akademie, Deutsche Welle, funded by the European Union and co-funded by BMZ; Government of Canada, The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), Embassy of Sweden, IMS (International Media Support).
Allies & Contributing Partners: Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine (PFRU), The Fritt Ord Foundation, National Agency on Corruption Prevention, the Federal Foreign Office of Germany, European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF), UNESCO and the People of Japan, ARTICLE 19, INDEX: Institute for Documentation and Exchange, Jam Factory Art Center, Donbas Media Forum, Coalition of culture actors, LEMKIN Society, The Reckoning Project, EU4Recovery, Recovery Window, George Gongadze Prize, Transatlantic Dialogue Center, Public Interest Journalism Lab, RITO Group, Krayna, Dukachi
Media Partners: Ukrainer, The Kyiv Independent, Deník N, Coda Story, Aftenposten, United24 Media, Euromaidan Press, Ukrainska Pravda, Rubryka, Hromadske radio, The Ukrainians, 24 Channel, Suspilne, Suspilne Culture, Babel, The Gaze, Nakypilo, Seznam Spravy
Digital Partners: n-ost, The Fix, UA TV, Silicon Curtain, ShoTam, ua.news, Live Media Hub, Craft, Radio Nakypilo, Nakypilo Osvita, ZEG Festival, UATV English.
Cultural Partners: Lvivska Poshtа, LiRoom, Memorial Platform.