Mariia Horshkova

Much has already been written about how quarantine restrictions have affected many people's lives. But behind the statistics there are always personal experiences and stories. For the most part, the project, which continues and will continue until the end of quarantine, consists of self-portraits. Despite the isolation, each person always has the «most understanding» model and interlocutor - ourselves. And the most important thing is to find a common language with him / her and not to lose touch. After all, this is the person with whom you spend the most time, but not everyone can listen.

It combines my past and my present. During this time, my mental state has changed, as have the people around me. The virtual space has become more familiar than ever. Even then, when restrictions have become noncommittal for many, perhaps this is a temporary phenomenon. Even on the contrary, with the removal of the bans, I myself went into a «quarantine state». It seems to me that people have long lived in a state of seclusion, creating their own closed worlds, interlocutors with whom you can talk about everything, because they are uninvolved listeners, whom you will probably never meet. One chat with someone once close to you is replaced by another and so on, time after time.

In your routine, you highlight those with whom you can share your problems, telling them to someone who probably doesn't even exist in your visualized and created world. Even reality leaves around you only some of the virtual-real people who are still within your field of vision and affection.

Almost all of us were told by our parents that we were the best and most beautiful, but in society, people often base their self-esteem on the judgments of others, often not even close ones.

This project was spontaneous, I started taking pictures of myself at different moments of my life to look at my life, to look at my body from the outside in photographs, not just in the mirror. To understand what I don't like about myself, why and where the feeling of fear or aggression comes from, shame, or aggression that I try to cover up with other emotions or convince myself that I don't have them.

All the photos are self-portraits. It became a kind of therapy for me, in which you are your own psychologist. A way to see what was in my past experience. To see what was in my past experience of communication and accept it. To stop thinking about what other people will say and rethinking how I perceive myself.

These photos were taken during a residency in Nuremberg organized by Roman Pyatkovka in September 2022. It was the first time I left my city and the country since the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine. The theme of the project was reflections on the body in a safe space and the feeling of security as a phenomenon that has now acquired new meanings. Therefore, this project for me is a subconscious reflection on the topic of comfortable space, because for the first time since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, I started shooting something that was not part of military events.

The feeling of illusory security haunts everywhere, even in a conditionally safe environment. It may be a trivial comparison of the naked body as insecurity, but I think that's exactly what it feels like when you realize that you can no longer feel safe. You begin to find "refuge" in various everyday things or a new hobby. You create imaginary worlds where you can feel comfortable again.

At all times, people have believed in otherworldly forces and creatures that they believed had an impact on their everyday life and life in general. Ukrainian demonology has many creatures that our ancestors believed in several centuries ago. The most popular ones are still part of folklore, and their images are often used in movies, cartoons, and books. But for the people of that time, they were not part of mythology, although in some villages eyewitness accounts of otherworldly beings have been preserved, for example, from grandmothers or parents, and some people continue to believe in them.

In the project, I want to explore the diversity of the otherworldly universe and translate it into the modern world. The photographs themselves are based more on feelings than on the actual description of the creatures described in folklore. However, it is impossible to assert a true image, because all the stories, stories that are passed down from generation to generation, demonological images look similar but different at the same time.

The more you delve into the history of our ancestors, the more you can see strange images and figures in everyday life, and can we deny their existence?

Toys, someone's shoes, a curtain mixed with dirt on the ground, fragments of Russian missiles, scorched and gray with dust, and glass covered with glass - this is what you see near every house, park, or educational institution that has been hit by enemy shells.

Behind every such picture are peaceful lives of people whose fragments now lie on the ground. Bloody footprints, a bloody glove with someone's shoes and napkins next to it. A child's scooter and a bee toy that may have been played with by a child not long before, someone's game on a disk. Broken glass and a shell fragment lying in the bright green grass, and in the yard of a private house where a dog was killed by the fragments, you can still see the worn bloodstains on the pavement. And again and again dust, and again blood, and again clothes, photos, peaceful life...

Looking down, you can always see small stories and personal tragedy. In the photos, I wanted to show just such details, which may not be so important and not always noticeable, but were part of someone's life.