If a Tree Falls in a Forest

(2022—ongoing)

At the end of May 2022, just a month after Russian occupation troops were defeated and left Kyiv and the northern regions of Ukraine I started traveling around the region with the idea of documenting the consequences of the invasion.

As I never had such an experience as a conflict photographer, I was shocked by what I saw—the places I knew well before February 2022, were now turned into eerily decorations. Burned houses and cars, destroyed bridges and a chaotic environment surrounded me. I forced myself to take the first pictures but didn’t have a clear idea of what to point the camera at. After the first trip around the region, I was not sure that I needed to take these pictures. Looking through the matte screen of my 4x5 camera, I understand that it is easier to relive the experience of the war, is to distance from it within an image. So I started using photography as personal therapy.

The war simultaneously existed in all dimensions: real life and virtual. Images of war have penetrated our everyday life. Corpses, destroyed houses, scorched land — all this has become commonplace in the news feed and real life. Against the backdrop of such psychological pressure, I was reminded of an old philosophical riddle: “If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” In this interpretation, sound is not only a physical phenomenon but also requires an observer to interpret and experience it. Therefore, if there is no observer, there is no sound.I used it as an analogy to the mental state of a person experiencing intense emotional stress and at the same time that requires a conscious being to perceive it.

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Urban Studies