"If you stare into the void for a long time"

Nine years of war – a time of voids and fillings. Places at our table have emptied, while spaces in our hearts have filled. Some cities have depopulated, others have come to life. Empathy for some has dried up, love for others has multiplied, as well as hatred for yet others. Some roads have closed, others have become excessive. We have filled ourselves with rage or fatigue, often both at the same time.

There is a well-known and somewhat banal quote by Nietzsche: "if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." Supposedly, someone who fights with monsters must take care not to become one. But what happens to those who gaze long into voids, into empty spaces and black holes – externally in landscapes, internally in themselves, or around them in their families and communities? If we absorb these voids into ourselves, as we could absorb the darkness of the abyss, what becomes of these empty spaces afterward? Do they remain eternal deserts inside us? Or does a dam break at some point, and something overwhelms us? Is that "something" pain, love, or rage?

The exhibition "If you stare into the void" doesn't provide an answer to "what then?" but captures the moment of contemplation. It's a moment of stillness, numbness, silence. Or a moment when horror turns into black humor, and fear meets passion. This exhibition is not about what we see when we stare into emptiness but about the direction of the gaze – the direction past the camera, past the vis-à-vis, and past physical objects. It's about the direction of the gaze where, in good faith, we don't want to look. When you stare into the void for a long time, there is a likelihood of encountering that part of your "self" that has been unknown until now.

The exhibition features 36 works by 19 photographers from Mykolaiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Mariupol, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Kharkiv. Some of the works selected for this exhibition have not been exhibited before at MYPH and have not been published in the school's books and catalogs.

Photographers: Anastasiia Antonenko, Eva Holts, Mariia Horshevska, Yana Hryhorenko, Anastasiia Dekhtiaruk, Olga Koval, Olha Lobazova, Sergey Melnitchenko, Tetiana Mytsyk, Veronika Mol, Olena Morozova, Anya Nedobeiko, Viktoriia Nikonenko, Mariia Petrenko, Xeniia Petrovska, Anna Romaniuta, Savka, Olesia Saienko, Olga Chekotovska