Ukranian Photobooks

Ukrainian Photobooks. In between a personal history and politics.
Guest exhibition during XPRINT photobook festival - Personal stories

curator: Alina Sandulyak
artists: Alexander Chekmenev, Andriy Dostliev, Vitaly Fomenko, Yulia Krivich, Boris Mikhailov, Victor Kochetov, Misha Pedan, Yulia Polunina-But, Shilo Group

exhibition running: 24 Nov 2018 – 1 Dec 2018
opening 24 Nov 2018, 2 pm
opening hours: Wednesday-Friday 12-7 pm, Saturday 12-5 pm

The first photobook in Ukraine was created between 1984 and 1985. These were the last years of the Soviet Union: society was still under pressure, which was mixed with a sense of absurdity and uselessness, and hence also with the feeling of some kind of freedom. In the photobook ‘Unfinished Dissertation’ Boris Mikhailov combined photographs with texts commenting upon everyday life in Kharkov, Ukraine. A sequence of very personal, intimate images merges with gloomy landscapes and pictures of public spaces, building a commentary on the broader social context - an all-encompassing melancholy. Then the next wave of photobooks in Ukraine appeared around 2013 and 2014 - during the Revolution of Dignity and the subsequent war. These were mostly first publications of different authors from the Kharkiv School of Photography of the Soviet era. However, young photographers have also started to think about their own feelings, and to describe their existence in present-day Ukrainian conditions. What are those photographs like? Why and how can personal stories and experiences translate into descriptions of a particular time and place? And how does the photobook format work with that?