“the sound of birds mixes with the sound of explosions”

BÉTON BLEU MAGAZINE x YANA HRYHORENKO

Yana Hryhorenko is a photographer and NFT-artist from Kyiv, Ukraine. With Béton Bleu Magazine she spoke about the war, coping strategies in the creative scene and how NFT became a powerful tool to help Ukrainian women.

BB: How are you?

Yana Hryhorenko: I am ok, in Ukrainian terms. That means I am sleeping in my own bed and have warm food on my table. I am living near Kyiv. Here, the sound of birds mixes with the sound of explosions. But there is nothing to complain about. It is calm enough, at least for now.

BB: How are your fellow artists and friends?

Yana: Everyone is doing what they can. Some are saving their families while trying to keep safe from the shelling. Some are trying to get to Czech Republic in a semi-conscious state. Some have crossed the border to Poland and are already helping other people who are fleeing as well. Some are creating animal shelters in their villages, some are living in the basement, some work in the IT troops. Some join the armed forces as volunteer photographers. I am proud of every Ukrainian regardless of their location.

BB: Where are you right now as you’re answering our questions?

Yana: In my kitchen. It is like an emotional bonfire for my little family (me, my husband, and our cute dog named Chloe). We are dreaming about how to bring my mother from another city to us, to hug her and hide her.

BB: What does your daily life look like?

Yana: In order to not to go crazy, I devoted all my time to creating a Women's NFT Collection to raise money for humanitarian needs and help our heroic warriors. I'm starting to force myself to return to the usual rituals of life. But you’re so focused on surviving, there is no room to relax. Every one of us that is not on the battlefield experiences this notorious survivor syndrome. I look at a yoga mat, moisturizer, or pretty pajamas and I can't touch them. I know that I must use the opportunities that I have and must save my psyche from self-destruction. Yesterday, March 19, i took my first walk near the river and did my first yoga excercises. It was the first day without 17 hours of work on my laptop.

BB: When you were younger, you already participated in successful exhibitions around Ukraine and abroad. How did you end up in photography?

Yana: I had worked in Journalism and Marketing since I was 15. By the age of 25, I was an art director in an event company; everything seemed clear and predetermined. But then there was a significant break-down and fracture in my life. I felt the need to speak about that but without words. During that time, my husband gave me a camera. That’s how, in 2019, I ended up in photography. I had a great teacher, Dimitri Bogachuk, whose inspirational approach made me fall in love with photography. After two years of practice, I was lucky to participate in several exhibitions.

BB: What is your approach to photography?

Yana: My main tool is colour. My approach is dictated by the vision I was born with. Your eyes can see, but that doesn’t mean you understand what vision is, people say. My short-sightedness caused by congenital eye abnormality proves that vividly. Without lenses and glasses, I only see colors, no clear shapes or lines, no other signs of reality. Every day, I confirm the wave theory of light, I notice various manifestations of diffraction, interference and dispersion of light, and many other "visions" I have not yet identified. I owe these lessons in fascinating physics to a genetically determined congenital anomaly of vision. The moment when my parents bought me my first glasses is one the brightest memory of my childhood. That is how I can explain my attraction to bright colors as an artist, because when you wear glasses for the first time or after a long break, the colors are impressive, the whole world seems to burn. This is the moment of enlightenment for me - bright, full of psychoactive energy.

I also see and understand the composition of the frame of things in an unusual way. Most of my images are vertical. The left eye practically does not see, and in horizontal images I can rely on chance, but not on sight. So my perception of the world is slightly different from others. It has been like this since childhood and I have learned to live with it. After all, the artist in me is happily calm, because she can see more than my eyes can.

BB: You depict the current war situation with pictures from your „Disturbing Beauty“ series and accompanying text on social media. Are these recent pictures?

Yana: A week before the war, I had a spontaneous shoot, my friend and model Ira Kabysh took a military helmet, and as it turned out later, the manufacturer of these helmets wanted to use our shoot for their promotional materials. On March 23rd, I filmed another colleague of mine, Kristina Revizor, the author of the UWPO (Ukrainian Women Photographers Organization), with a gas mask. The next day, the war began. I woke up and saw all these messages in my messenger apps saying WE ARE BOMBED. I still don’t understand why I took these photographs. Sometimes it seems that if I hadn’t filmed this, there would have been no war… This is of course nonsense but it determines my mixed feelings about this “photo-prophecy”.

BB: You started your own NFT project to support female Ukrainian artist in this current situation. Can you tell us more?

Yana: Its not exactly like that. We united with girls to help our country! Our collective “Ukrainian Women Photographers Organization” was founded in 2020 during the first Covid-19 lockdown. We made a great project about self-representation and had some plans for the future, thanks to our curator and president of organization - Anya Melnykova.

But then we got into this war. Together with Anya, we asked ourselves what we can do in this unreal situation. Everything happened so quickly and we reacted to it spontaneously. I was never a NFT-expert, I only learned how it works in general terms in February. I had an empty account on Opensea, and in a conversation with Anya, I casually suggested the idea to start a collective NFT collection. Now the collection on Opensea features the work of almost 70 Ukrainian women, and all funds raised are pledged for urgent needs of Ukrainians in hot spots, including medicines, food, protective clothes and the support of orphanages and animal shelters. None of us expected such a response. Nobody could foresee this. There was no time to invent something and select words. We just did what we felt we needed to do. his is truly the best feeling I have experienced these past few weeks. That realization that together we are strong. That as women, we can change something, even during wartime.

BB: There is massive civil support for Ukrainians in the rest of Europe – can you feel any of it?

Yana: Yes, of course. My colleagues now are all around the world (not just because of the war, some of them have lived there before ). And they share with us all this support from civil people. We can see live translations from meetings all around the world. But we also feel betrayed by the official organizations and governments that 8 years ago turned a blind eye to the annexation of Crimea, and now they just look through their fingers at how our beautiful country is being destroyed, how a real genocide is being perpetrated on the Ukrainian people and their children. It's the worst thing you can imagine. But the sky is still open… Regardless of the cry of the soul of the entire Ukrainian nation.

BB: How can we help?

Yana: If you like art, you can support Ukrainian artists - in NFT or an other way. Not only with our women's collection; many European galleries now offer the opportunity to purchase Ukrainian art - and help our country and our people in such a difficult period.

BB: What else do you want to say or want us to know?

Yana: Ukrainians don't give up! Glory to Ukraine! Glory to heroes!

Thank you so much for your time.

Biography:

Yana Hryhorenko – photographer, nft-artist from Kyiv, Ukraine.

Member of Ukrainian Women Photographers Organization.

At the age of 30, she left her 15 year-long-career in marketing and started learning photography, trying to realize creative potential without words, through the image. In 2019, she began her studies of photography and art, as well as working on her first documentary photo series "Childreach”. Yana Hryhorenko is working in the field of documentary and conceptual photography; currently exploring themes of poor vision and visual abnormality.

Website: https://yanahryhorenko.art/CV

NFT collection https://opensea.io/collection/uwpo

UWPO page https://www.instagram.com/u_women_photographers/

Interview: Ana-Marija Cvitic

08/04/2022

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