Brave
2021-2022
Video, 103 minutes
The work was created in 2021 during the Brave Festival in Kyiv. The festival took place on the territory of the Metrobud factory, whose main purpose is the production of subway wagons. An improvised photo studio was set up right in the middle of one of the factory's premises. I invited visitors to it and asked them to simply look into the camera for a minute. Do not dance, do not succumb to external stimuli, and try to freeze. Stop for one minute.
In total, I shot a little over 100 people in the course of two days.
My initial idea was to study how the presence of a camera and a photographer affects behavior and how the relationship between a model and a photographer is formed. I did not plan to work with the received materials or edit them into a separate film. In fact, the work itself was the process of its creation.
However, with the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, these videos seem to have gained new meaning, and I edited them into a 103-minute silent film. I have no contact with the majority of the people presented in the final version of the work; therefore, me and the viewers can only guess what happened to the people in those silent video portraits and whether they are safe and alive. The movie was shown in Austria.
Installation shot from "No Dancing Allowed", Frei_raum Q21, Wien
Shown at:
frei_raum Q21, Wien, Austria