I am a self-taught photographer, 36 years old, born in Kyiv, Ukraine, and I have been shooting since 2015. My work moves between documentary, metaphysical, abstract, and street photography. I am currently serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
This series was born at the intersection of two forces pulling in opposite directions: the wish to photograph during the little free time left by military service, and the wartime restriction on photographing in public space. Documenting the life of a front-line city from the street became something I feared to do — not because of the rules alone, but because of the stupor that settled in alongside them, a kind of paralysis in the face of what was and wasn’t allowed to be seen.
Unable to point the camera outward, I turned it inward. Every frame in this collection was made inside a single rented apartment — a space that became both shelter and boundary.
A curtain stands in for a street I couldn’t photograph. A glass left on a table becomes evidence of a life continuing in spite of everything. Shadows fall across walls the way restrictions fall across a person’s days.
