Ukraine’s chance

“Ukraine’s Chance” is the title Stas Voliazlovsky gave to his exhibit of sociopsychological child photo portraits.

The exhibit is hosted by Oles Honchar Kherson Oblast Scientific Library. The author of the photos is an adherent of the conceptual approach in art and avoids unambiguousness. Everything seems to be simple at first sight: uncomplicated, typically calm, measured genre scenes. There are children in every photo: alone and in groups, indoors and outdoors, with adults and by themselves, eating or playing, or just looking into the camera. If you watch them out of general context, you would pay attention to the author’s skill in noticing the nuances of psychological condition, building shot composition, and using colourful, “telling” background. But taking into account the fact that most of the photos were taken in Ukrainian families with many children, it is easy to notice that they acquire additional overtones and reveal new dimensions of meaning.

Unfortunately, in the past decade Ukraine’s population has been aging very fast. We have been losing hundreds of thousands of people annually. The paradox of the decreasing birth rate is that some point to economic reasons, while failing to see some quite obvious facts. Children’s voices are heard more not in the mansions whose owners do not have financial problems, but in places where there are considerable difficulties.

Families with many children are often on the verge of becoming a marginal social group, while they are a major source of new citizens for our country. Chances of Ukraine’s survival depend on them. Though nobody knows whether they will accept that social niche set apart for them by unkind society, try to change it, or leave it for good, as many do. When a child’s gaze is caught by a photographer, in it you can see the chance that this country has. It is, perhaps, the same as these kids have...

The exhibition is open until July 9.