Ukraine: In Search of Lost Identity
© Kostia Smolyaninov
Kostia Smolyaninov: Street Theography (2013)
View Exhibition: Street Theography
“People often demonstrate their personal feelings in public places, for example, passionately and theatrically show their relationship with God. But the street is full of people indifferent to God, or quietly carrying faith in the heart. Thus a lot of pictorial dissonances emerge allowing superb mise en scènes.
Smolyaninov chose a complex facet of street life – improvised theater with only two viewers – the photographer and a God. Both are having fun looking for lies and the truth, sincerity and hypocrisy. Faith frees the man from at least two of numerous evils: boredom and penury. The artist captures these with his camera adding ironic accents.
Smolyaninov’s clock has no hands. He lives in the ancient city of Lviv, he travels to other ancient cities where street life seems to be frozen in time. His images have a unique feature, they stop both fragments of a second and centuries.” (Alexander Liapin)
View Exhibition: Stree Theography
About Kostia Smolyaninov
Kostia Smolyaninov lives in Lviv, Ukraine. His Street Theography project, shot in Western Ukraine as well as in Poland and Russia, has been published as a photo book.