A Migrant's Portrait

This project explores identity through a person’s interaction with various objects.

Now that I live abroad, my constant moves have prompted me to gather objects from home that have no practical value but each hold a memory. This led me to wonder what other Ukrainians take with them and what stories lie behind these objects.

I take pictures of the hands holding these kinds of “ talismans ", conveying identity through touch rather than through a depiction of the face, thereby reimagining the traditional form of the portrait. The sequential format emphasizes the equal value of each object. Taken in the dark with a powerful flash on an old camera, the images evoke the anxiety and the moment of decision regarding what to pack in one’s suitcase when the time comes.

P. A. R. T. I. C. U. L. A.

A reflection on a unique state in which life is divided into a “before” and an “after,” where the connection to the past slowly fades and the present has not yet become tangible. Living in quiet solitude, the desire to gradually come to perceive existence as life itself. A pause as a way to reclaim the present and hold on to the moment.