Ukraine ablaze

Faces

Technique:

Digital photography

Year:

2022

We're social animals that have evolved to recognise emotions quickly. We can project this ability on non-human objects as well. The phenomenon is called pareidolia. Two dots for eyes and a line for mouth can grab our attention. We perceive it as a face and even interpret it as expressing a particular emotion — happiness, anger, pain.

When Russians were forced to retreat from Kyiv suburbia, I went there to photograph the traces of the occupation. When I arrived at Irpin, a city next to Bucha, I instantly felt I had trouble taking portraits and documenting stories. I lacked the social skills to approach the people who survived the invasion. I couldn't talk or point a camera at anyone. Still, I felt an urgent need to express the traces of the consequences of the war.

I decided to look for pareidolic faces formed by bomb explosions. It was my way of shooting portraits of war without intruding on others' personal space.

Dima Tolkachov. Faces