A Liminal Square: Portraits from Kiev


  • Photographer
    Tatiana Grigorenko
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Date of Photograph
    2014
  • Technical Info
    70x90cm. ink-jet prints

A Liminal Square is a series of portraits of people from all walks of life that participated in the recent revolution in Ukraine. The portraits explore the intersection of a major historical event and the personal histories of its participants. Made with a large-format camera, the images favor a measured, steady approach to the study of rapidly evolving political events.

Story

Kiev, late February 2014: Just days earlier, a despised president had been successfully overthrown in a popular uprising. But the revolutionaries are not going home. On these barricades they had found strength, encountered death, discovered hope and solidarity, founded a community. They refuse to let the square be taken away from them. But what comes next? They stand sentinel, holding their breath. In this liminal space, after the fall of the old order and before the rise of a new one, anything is still possible.

A Liminal Square is a series of portraits of people from all walks of life that participated in the recent revolution in Ukraine. The portraits explore the intersection of a major historical event and the personal histories of its participants. Made with a large-format camera, the images favor a measured, steady approach to the study of rapidly evolving political events.

Tatiana Grigorenko’s interdisciplinary work focuses on the relationship between the individual and his world within an over-arching social-political context. Born in the United States to a family of Soviet political dissidents, history, especially the history of repression, is central to her practice. She is interested in how one navigates and eventually emancipates one’s body, identity and memory from the context of pre-defined social models and “official” histories, discourses and hegemonic narratives. Through collage, photography, video and text, her work examines revolt, resistance, power dynamics and ultimately, their common underlying thread: the search for utopia.

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