Research Grant for Ukrainian Lens-based Artists and Researchers
RGULAR
Vic Bakin (1984)
photographer/visual artist
"Last year I started a still-untitled and ongoing project about the Ukrainian queer scene. Working with youth portraiture in general and being queer myself I am very engaged in the queer scene specifically. Here, after years of forbiddance and reppression, the queer scene begins to sprout from the underground, little by little gains its own unique voice, different from others. I personally feel obliged to give this voice a visual form."
Yana Kononova (1977)
photographer/visual artist/researcher
"Since the end of March 2022, I have been working on an artistic study of the war. I take pictures on my medium format film camera of what has been happening in Ukraine since the beginning of the war with the Russian Federation. I move to areas that have been occupied or territories where hostilities have taken place. My focus is on traces of war crimes, destroyed civilian infrastructure, objects of the militaristic imagination of the invaders."
Nazar Furyk (1995)
photographer/visual artist
"In my photographic practice before the full scale invasion I captured, or more often, arranged everyday still lives and landscapes, combining artificial objects with elements of the natural environment. Most of all, I really appreciated the deliberate and precise chaos of nature when emphasizing the surrealist and fragile nature of the landscape with its strange power.
Now I try to go through the 'chaos', I try to capture people with big hopes for the life ahead, people with a powerful belief in freedom, faith, and courage, and to show all these fragilities in the photos."
Viacheslav Poliakov (1986)
photographer/designer
"I'm constantly trying to capture and share the unique aesthetic of my immediate environment. I record a combination of natural forms and human impact. Wild vegetation and signs of natural decay on the old walls, bleached by the southern sun of Kherson. Rusty metal fences and organic waste used as fertilisers in the backyards of Lviv. Graffiti layers on the gray soviet lime bricks. Old pain, re-captured and healed by nature.
With the full scale invasion of Russia, under the influence of images of torn apart bodies in the news feeds, I’ve started to tear apart the pictures I had. Mixing the records of old pain, almost vanished in time, with the new pain, live and growing."
Elena Subach (1980)
photographer/researcher/curator
"My goal is to portray and record oral stories of people who were forced to leave their homes because of the war. I ask about the experience of abandoning everything and going into the unknown, about the conditions those people live in now. The photos you can see here were taken in Lviv shelters for internally displaced persons. Theaters, schools, libraries, kindergartens, and offices have been converted into shelters."
One guy from Mariupol said, "In order to be able to evacuate from there, you had to become a different person—half-empty and semi-new. Otherwise, you had no chance to leave the city. You become a person with no past as it has been taken away, a person whose memories have no material basis. There is nothing you are left with, not even the graves of your parents."
Amina Ahmed
researcher/journalist/editor
Researcher of contemporary Ukrainian photography, journalist and editor based in Kyiv. Ahmed co-edited the UPHA Made in Ukraine anthology of Ukrainian photography, published by BOOKSHA in 2021, and was a senior editor of the Your Art media platform, dedicated to contemporary visual art in Ukraine. She is a co-curator of the artist-run-space Hlebzawod (Kyiv).
Belarus
Alena Kakhanovich artist [Instagram] [Website]
Alexander Vasukovich photojournalist [Instagram] [Website]
Alexander Zenkovich documentary photographer [Instagram] [Website] [SHKLO]
Alexandra Soldatova artist [Instagram] [Website]
Aleksei Kazantsev artist [Instagram] [Website]
Anastasiya Dubrovina artist [Instagram] [Website]
Andrei Liankevich artist/founder of Month of Photography in Minsk [Instagram] [Website]
Andrey Anro artist [Instagram] [Website]
Anna Karpenko curator/photojournalist [Instagram] [Website]
Darya Burakina artist [Instagram] [Website]
Dzina Danilovich artist [Instagram]
Evgene Kanaplev + Julia Leidik artists [Instagram] [Website]
Hanna Hrynkevich artist [Instagram] [Website]
Siarhei Hudzilin artist/digital activist [Instagram] [Website]
Hanna Shot artist [Instagram] [BiF]
Ihar Hancharuk artist [Instagram] [Website]
Iryna Arakhouskaya photojournalist [Instagram] [link]
Kate Smuraga artist [Instagram] [Website]
Katerina Kouzmitcheva artist [Instagram] [Website]
Kseniya Halubovich documentary photographer/film director [Instagram] [Website]
Lesia Pcholka & VEHA Archive artist/curator/archivist [Instagram] [Website]
Masha Svyatogor artist [Instagram] [Website]
Maxim Sarychau artist [Instagram] [Website]
Nadia Buzhan artist [Instagram] [Website]
Nadya Sayapina artist [Instagram] [Website]
Oksana Manchuk artist [Instagram] [link]
Oksana Veniaminova artist [Instagram] [Website]
Olga Bigel artist [Instagram] [Website]
Olga Moroz artist [Instagram] [Website] [BiF]
Olga Shukailo artist [Instagram] [Website]
Pasha Kritchko artist [Instagram] [Website]
Sviatlana Stankevich artist [Instagram] [Website] [Futures]
Tanya Kapitonova photojournalist [Instagram] [Website]
Tatsiana Tkachova artist/photojournalist [Instagram] [website]
Uladz Hrydzin photojournalist [Instagram] [Website]
Uladzimir Hramovich artist [Instagram] [Website] [SHKLO]
Vadim Zamirovski photojournalist [Instagram] [Website]
Vasilisa Palianina artist [Instagram] [Website]
Violetta Savchits photographer/editor/journalist [Instagram] [Website]
Volha Shukaila photojournalist/photo editor [Instagram] [Website]
Yauhen Attsetski photographer/journalist/educator [Instagram] [Website] [link]
Yura Matsiyun artist [Instagram] [Website]
Aleksei Borisionok curator/writer/organizer [Instagram] [Website]
Anna Chistoserdova co-founder/art director/curator/projects manager at Ў Gallery of Contemporary Art
Sergey Shabohin artist/writer/archivist/researcher [Instagram] [Website]
Antonina Stebur curator/researcher [Instagram] [Website]
Julia Volchok photo editor/co-founder of SHKLO
Lena Prents art histoian/curator [Instagram] [Website]
Olia Sosnovskaya artist/writer/researcher [Instagram] [Website]
Sophia Sadovskaya curator [Instagram] [Website]
Vadim Zamirovsky photojournalist [Instagram] [Website]
Month of Photography in Minsk [Instagram] [Website] [FOTOGRAF]
SHKLO Platform dedicated to contemporary Belarusian photography and visual arts by Julia Volchok and Maxim Sarychau [Instagram] [Website]
Art Under Occupation: An Interview with Nadya Sayapina by Anna Karpenko (2022)
On Protest and Activism: a talk with Tanya Kapitonova, Rafal Milach and Yulia Krivich (2020) by Futures
"Machine breathes, but I don't" - Project about the life of Belarusian doctors in 2020
No time for art? Artistic practice and visual activism during a revolution (2020) by Olga Kopenkina, Antonina Stebur, Aliaxey Talstou
Non Photo-Objective. Photographers from Belarus documenting the protests. A selection of work by Yauhen Attsetski, Carolina Paliakowa, and Violetta Savchitz by UMBAU by HFG Karlsruhe
"The Future of Belarus, Fueled by Women" Exhibition organized by @fotografiska.tallinn . Video interviews with Nadia Buzhan, Iryna Arakhouskaya, Daria Burakina, Volha Shukaila, Viyaleta Sauchyts by MoMuseum, Lithuania
We are continuously growing our database of artists, researchers, curators and institutions. Do you feel someone is missing? Please write us an e-mail at info@eepberlin.org
We asked: What are the most meaningful ways to support the Ukrainian photographic community?
Scholarships that allow us to continue our work and give the world a more in-depth perspective on the situation in Ukraine.
Push your cultural institutions to understand their colonial approach to all ex-members of the Russian empire.
Ensure artists' visibility and active participation in the international photographic context, assist them in building new cultural networks and in maintaining existing ones.