Donbas - Family Photo Archive
It’s a visual anthropological research project.
Photo albums of residents are a documentary story of Donbas. Family archives of residents of Luhansk region include a deep layer of visual material that captures the cultural and historical features of the regimes of the past century. The photo archive combines private and public. The line between them is not always clear, considering the ideological construction of society in the last century.
A private photograph is used to record the key stages of life. Growing up, the person transformes from object of the photograph to subject, complementing the family archive with photographs of its time. Many funeral photographs were found among the village photographs of the 1960s and early 1970s, although in the cities this tradition is gradually disappearing. But no matter how the culture of photography changes, the person stays in the focus of the lens from birth to death.
There is a fragment of the photo archive in the exposition, which fixes 8 wedding rituals:
- Standing on a wedding towel
- Tasting a loaf
- Setting fire to the hearth
- Greeting parents and get parental blessing
- Laing flowers on memorable places of World War II
- The newlyweds' tradition to take pictures together
- The tradition of photographing newlyweds while registration in the registry office
- The whole family photoset
Wedding is one of the key ritualized events of life, it represents the cultural codes of the East Ukraine. It embodies both regional customs and national traditions.
«Plus/Minus» art residence is a public organization registered in 2017 in the city of Sievierodonetsk. It unites into an extensive network of Luhansk like-minded people from different spheres, such as: culture, art, history and anthropology of the region, media, civic activism, education and jurisprudence. The main directions of work of «Plus/Minus» art residence relate to introducing the local audience to art and history of the region and country, mediation of internal and external regional cultural activities.
Kateryna Sirik is a curator of the residence.
