The photo book Moya Ridna is an exploration of photography as a medium to close the gap between image and memory, reality and imagination. It is a visual diary about hope, pain and war; speaking about disaster but from a perspective of a family album and current war events incorporated in it. One of the intentions of the work, created out of a need to put a complicated and sometimes traumatic reality into a story, was to give a visual voice to the ideas and emotions caused by the full scale Russian invasion in Ukraine.
On the one hand, photography is a cut through space and time that captures a moment, and on the other hand, it is a direct depiction of reality. What is this apparent contradiction in relation to life and transience? What are these images of memories in the mind that have never been photographed? Do we remember something because it was "captured" as a photograph or do we want to capture the moments that are special? How do pictures become a story and what would the story look like without pictures to capture the memories?
2022, Edition of 15
Hardcover 76 pages 185x255mm
Cover image: NASA Worldview, November 2022, Blackout over Ukraine as a consequence of continued Russian strikes against civilian infrastructure.
Wedding picture of my parents taken in March 1994 in front of the statue of Duc de Richelieu in Odesa, Ukraine collaged with the screenshot from the news showing the same statue covered with sandbags in March 2022.
Moya Ridna translated from Ukrainian means my familiar, my dear, my beloved one. It’s mostly used with nouns, that in Ukrainian language are female, e.g.: mother, earth, language. This word combination is mostly known from the classic Ukrainian folk song Ridna matu moya (Dearest mother of mine) performed by Kvitka Cisyk.
