Oksana Nevmerzhytska

This triptych is my metaphor for a state when you feel your fragility, sensing how everything is shattering more intensely. It embodies a sense of losing integrity and balance. The fear of breaking into tiny fragments and the fear of losing oneself forever. It is an expression of internal conflicts and emotional turbulence, as well as contemplation on the essence of one's resilience and the search for inner balance in challenging moments of life.

My series was created in 2020. It was important for me that the reality in my country, especially in the small cities, often disagrees with the time that we live in, as though lost in time. I would like for my country situated in the center of Europe to develop and modernize faster. In its turn this would influence the quality people's lives. Fully-functioning hospitals as an example. By the means of just color and context in my works I wanted to provoke emotions and raise awareness of this topic, and also to give a sense of my feelings about the place where people get help, are cared for, their lives are saved, and at the same time to the conditions that for log do not correspond to the time, are not acceptable.

The war abruptly and rudely tore me out of my usual happy life, my comfort zone. The stream of panicked questions never left the first time you sought your safe place. Who am I? Where am I? What will I do? How long have I been here? Do I have the right to exist? You are separate from all people, watching life from the outside as if you are stuck between realities - your own, which no longer exists, and someone else's, which you cannot accept, cannot penetrate. Loss of balance, freezing, living in one's inner world - the world of thoughts and memories. Hiding under the blanket as in childhood, hiding from all fears, pain and anxieties. But being in this state, you inevitably meet with yourself - explore your feelings and fears, try to self-identify, learn your strength and accept your weakness.

The photograph tells a story of loss of home, the illusion of security, and how everything is incredibly fragile and easily destructible. It reflects the freezing of time and life. The dust-covered ruins, filled with history, bear witness to how war can simultaneously destroy stability, confidence, and dreams. Here, time has come to a halt, and life has become a collection of memories.

However, despite all the tragic circumstances depicted in this photo, we hold on to faith and hope. Feeling how challenging it is to move forward under such conditions, it is important to let go of the past and find the strength to rebuild one's life. War may destroy buildings, but it cannot destroy the inner strength and will of people."

Death has always been one of those topics that leave us under the influence of something mysterious and unknown. Our subconscious reflects this feeling through various symbols, archetypes, and fantasies that are often associated with death.

With the beginning of the full-scale invasion in my country, death began to be too close and everywhere. Fear has always been with me in the background, sometimes overwhelming me with a wave of terror and helplessness. I tried to look at this topic through the prism of photography and consider how images of death affect our understanding and fear of it. For me, photography has become a way of expressing inner fears and a questionnaire for subconscious associations related to death. Perhaps certain images of death remind me of my own objective or symbolic fears, which helps me realize and overcome them.

Photography as an art form and a way of capturing a moment can create images that strike our senses. It can help us more easily accept and understand the physical aspect of the end. The subconscious mind can perceive these images as reality, which helps us to adapt to the fact of death as an integral part of life, which comes for every living creature.

Spiritual death is more abstract and metaphorical. It can indicate a state when a person loses contact with his or her own soul, essence, or values. Spiritual death can revolve around a loss of spiritual identity, moral degradation, or abandonment of inner development. While physical death is an inevitable part of life, spiritual death can be avoided or transformed. Death is not just an ending, but also an opportunity for rethinking and moving on to something new.

An important advantage of photography is its ability to perceive death in a multidimensional perspective. It has become a tool for looking at it from different angles, helping me to better understand and overcome my fears. It can capture both the physical and subconscious aspects of death, helping to develop a deeper understanding of the topic.