Golodomor. Phantoms of 30 years

« Golodomor. Phantoms of 30 years » are the portraits of those who suffered from Stalin’s repressions and starvation in 1932-1933. These are the faces of people looking at us from that awful period. Some faces are the paraphrase of typical portraits in heroic style distinctive to this totalitarian period full of “Billboards of honour”, others resemble to yellowish photos from family archives displayed on the walls of a countryside house in the form of iconostasis. Each portrait has his history: executed priest, kolkhoz chairman, milkmaid, komsomol leader, pioneer with its symbolic arm gesture who delivered up his parents “kulaks” (rich peasants) to KGB, nearby a “komissar” (revolutionary group chief) killed by starving peasants, a shepherd condemned for picking un the spike rests on a harvested kolkhoz field, a cannibal woman who killed her mother.
The documentary basis of these photos are evident. However, this project is not a series of documentary photography. This is an artistic imitation of the real facts row leading a spectator to the field of genetically programmed fear where those real facts have no any more actual power. It leads actually a spectator to the sphere where reigns the myth.
A photo for me is a semi-finished product. Using a complex system of photo treatment I transform a real fact captured image into the epic canvas. That is why my photos are full of scratches as if these are the traces of falling stars symbolising the millions of persons dead at this cruel period.