Dreams of a Motherland

Dreams of a Motherland is a visual anthropology of the human and physical consequences of Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine across the countries eastern regions.

A land scarred by years of war, occupation, and displacement, this project aims to document how destruction and daily life remain deeply entangled. Frontline cities and the terrain surrounding them bear the marks of a conflict that continues to reshape how people live and move.

Working across these places over time, the project constructs a quiet, sustained portrait of a region in prolonged crisis. Photographs of people, buildings, and landscape are brought into dialogue with one another, tracing how war has altered not only the physical environment but the rhythms of everyday existence within it.

When my corpse becomes food for flies
And my bones decay to dust,
And the sun sets on the land
I once called home,

And the soles of invaders
Leave prints in sullen mud,
While my sister dances in the kitchen
Beneath fading light.

And when darkness arrives,
Bearing with it death and despair,
And the sky turns crimson red,
I pray beneath it for a freer day.

And when the bombs roll in
Like thunder over Carpathian hills,
And the air turns thick with smoke,
I will remember the smell of rain.