“The last time bombs were thrown onto Kyiv was during WWII. When you see such scenes, you can barely breathe. Images of people with amputated legs in hospitals, dead bodies all over fields – all these seem unreal, your mind can’t believe this is happening now, in the 21st century”

The photographer has also recorded human suffering in hospitals, underground stations-turned-shelters, and on the streets of the city and its outskirts. His images show the extent of the violence inflicted on the Ukrainian population – from photographs of people lying weakly but defiantly in hospital beds, to those left dead on forest floors and pavements. 

Elsewhere, we see homes devastated by bombings. A statue of Taras Shevchenko – a symbol of Ukrainian independence – is bundled into sandbags. These scenes illustrate a stark reminder of then and now: “Each situation has or creates its own atmosphere, and I just try to feel it and convey it through my photography,” says Dondyuk.

“The last time bombs were thrown onto Kyiv was during World War Two,” says Dondyuk. “When you see such scenes, which previously you only saw in historical movies or paintings, you can barely breathe. Images of people with amputated legs in hospitals, dead bodies all over fields – all these seem unreal, your mind can’t believe this is happening now, in the 21st century.”

Dondyuk is currently splitting time between the eastern regions of Ukraine and his home in Kyiv. He posts images on social media, with the help of his wife Irina, several days or weeks after the event as a matter of safety. “As a documentary photographer, the entire situation is important to me. I documented the revolution in 2013–14, documented the war in 2014, and now we are witnessing the epic battle moment,” he reflects. “I hope that the Ukrainian people will stand. And even though there are big losses, blood and victims, the whole country will defend its independence and will not be absorbed by Russia.”

All of Dondyuk’s projects possess a desire to tell a truth; to mark a moment in history. The artist’s work has taken the form of books, exhibitions and digital projects, and centres on documentary photography, often with a focus on issues relating to history, memory, conflict and their consequences. Past work includes series that chronicle secret military camps in the Crimean Mountains, to those where we see the bitter, unfiltered detritus left behind on the war-torn battlefields of Ukraine, scattered in the wake of the fiery battles and revolutions of 2013 and 2014. 

In his ongoing project, Untitled Project from Chernobyl, Dondyuk stitches together the past and present using found photographs from the Chernobyl site with his own quiet landscape imagery of the area. The project is on hold as the Russian invasion continues, but Dondyuk plans to return to it when the war is over. 

For now, Dondyuk is focused on sharing a view from within the conflict. “When war comes everyone should decide whether they are running from it as far as possible, or resisting the aggressor. Truth is the main enemy of a totalitarian regime and truth destroys such a regime.”

@maximdondyuk

Volodymyr Petrov

@volodymyrpetrov

Kyiv-based photographer Volodymyr Petrov uses his lens to observe daily life, often in black-and-white, and has a talent for capturing fleeting moments while preserving classic composition. Every image tells a story, complete in its narrative and fascinating enough for a viewer to want to know more. Petrov worked for the Kyiv Post, and as a war photographer in Donbas. However, that experience is different from shooting a conflict in your home city.  

Today Petrov continues to record daily life in Kyiv and its suburbs, but the narrative has changed. People are still the focus of his pictures, but they are suffering. We see tears and confusion instead of smiling faces, while ruins of exploded buildings replace what were once cityscapes.

Mikhail Palinchak

@mpalinchakphoto

Born in Uzhgorod and based in Kyiv, Mikhail Palinchak is a street and documentary photographer and founder of the Ukrainian arts and culture magazine, Untitled. Between 2014 and 2019, Palinchak was the official photographer of Petro Poroshenko, the fifth President of Ukraine. Following the President on official missions, picturing him at summits of international organisations such as NATO, the EU and the United Nations, he often witnessed important political decision-making. His series, Bilateral Rooms (2018) pictures the rooms where these conversations took place. It visualises the volatility and elusiveness of political systems, which are embodied in temporary architectural forms. The rooms are basic and practical with cheap accessories, yet this is where fates of millions are decided. Today, his series has renewed relevance, when Ukraine’s fate depends on the dialogue between representatives of different organisations and leaders of different countries in these same spaces. 

Palinchak has been in Kyiv since the start of the war. Despite a new context, his artworks retain their aesthetic pull. Minimalist stories are full of drama conveyed through intense colour and an emphasis on details. His images have touched the hearts of the international community, such as those of the newlywed Yaryna Arieva, 21 and Svyatoslav Fursin, with their new AK47 guns. He regularly updates his Instagram with images and detailed explanations of what he is witnessing

Alina Smutko

@alina_smutko

Before the war, Alina Smutko’s work revolved around politics, sport, social and religious conflicts, life in post-conflict zones, historical memory and national identity. Smutko worked in Ukraine, predominantly in Crimea and in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. She also worked abroad in the South Caucasus and other post-Soviet territories. For her, photography allows her to address issues of social importance and to give voice to those who need support: mothers whose children died at birth or prematurely; seriously ill children; and Crimean Tatars who are forced to live in the occupation. She photographs people’s stories and their pain. 

Smutko is currently working in Kyiv. She continues to record stories of civilians who suffer from bombardment and shelling and are forced to flee to safer regions in Ukraine. Her use of a wide-angle lens brings us closer to the tragic events. Each day she posts an image to her Instagram to show that the capital stands. A recent post reads: “Kyiv is standing. Day 26. Store is working. Bread is on sale.”

Pavel Dorogoy

@paveldorogoy

Kharkiv photographer and filmmaker Pavel Dorogoy has always gravitated to architecture and vernacular photography in his projects. His series Without Hint of Art is based on the photo archive of Shchetinin Borys Opanasovych, a former Soviet citizen who lived in Kharkiv and repaired camera lenses in his free time. To test the equipment, he took pictures of himself and the city from the window of his apartment. Dorogoy started working with the archive in 2016, exploring the relationship between the person and their environment. By interpreting and layering images, Dorogoy chronicles the transformation of the biggest residential area in Kharkiv during the era of industrialization in the 1960s and 1970s, placing Shchetinin at its centre.

Kharkiv, located just 30 kilometres from the Ukraine-Russia border, has been shelled and bombarded since the first day of the invasion. The violent assaults continue to this day. Despite the danger, Dorogoy decided to stay in the city and record evidence of crimes committed by the Russian army. He depicts the city, damaged houses and destroyed landmarks. There are lonely passers-by and bodies of the wounded and killed in the streets here and there, but Dorogoy makes sure to always show people with the infrastructure in the background to preserve its image.

“I am staying in my home city because I want to collect and keep evidence of Putin’s and Russia’s crimes”, Pavel Dorogoy posted on Facebook.

Chekachkov began his career as a photojournalist in 2008. Covering a range of cultural and social subjects in his home country, his work has been published by a number of international media publications, including Forbes, National Geographic, The Guardian, Le Monde and WirtschaftsWoche. Though he continues to freelance, Chekachkov began to feel limited by documentary narratives and “wanted to expand the boundaries of the visual language,” he explains. “I started to experiment with different languages in art photography.”

The photographer’s most recent project NA4JOPM8, for example, began with a damaged harddrive containing thousands of images from Chekachkov’s personal archive taken over a decade. When some of the images were recovered, he found them altered, fragmented and discoloured. “I started to look through these images, trying to reevaluate my past and reconcile myself to the loss.” Images of political protests, monuments, intimate moments of the photographer’s personal life, and other assignments remix to reveal unexpected connections. “The more photographs I found, the more I was fascinated by this idea of error, which reflects Ukrainian reality much more precisely, then a ‘clean’ image itself,” he writes about the project. 

“The problem of identity was especially obvious after Maidan. It was something I was asking myself, and asking with my photography – what is it to be Ukrainian and what it means to me.”

Other works include Daily Lives, a fly-on-the-wall observation of Ukrainian student dormitories, and how people interact while sharing a small, common space. And Obscure Land, a series of panoramas of Ukrainian landscapes digitally constructed by an in-camera algorithm. There is also a portrait series, titled Victors, of decorated Ukrainian World War II veterans. 

What Chekachkov’s works have in common, is they are firmly rooted in his homeland, and an understanding of its changing social and political landscape. His exploration of identity became even more pertinent following the Euromaidan demonstrations in 2013. When the former Russian-backed president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, refused to sign a free trade agreement with the EU, thousands of people took to the streets in protest. This soon turned violent, but ultimately culminated with Yanukovych ousted from government. Russia perceived this as an illegal coup, and proceeded with a military intervention in February 2014, resulting in the annexation of Crimea.

“I live in Kharkiv, in the east, where people speak Russian,” Chekachkov explains. “The problem of identity was especially obvious after Maidan. It was something I was asking myself, and asking with my photography – what is it to be Ukrainian and what it means to me.

“Now, it’s constantly changing. Back then I had some answers – I felt like my mission was to invest as much as I can in Ukrainian culture,” he explains. In 2017 Chekachkov founded his own art photography school, born of a frustration that no other photography courses in Ukraine offered anything similar. “But now I feel like there is something more. It’s difficult to communicate this because it’s constantly changing, but I feel that my role is more than just a cultural agent. I don’t want to say that I’m proud, but I feel like being Ukrainian now is a huge responsibility and I want to take it.” He adds: “I feel like every day I am becoming a very different person. I don’t know how, but it shapes me in a very different way.”

chekachkov.com/

NA4JOPM8 is published by ist publishing, available now

But at the same time, events held even in private spaces were high-risk, and having a record of them was even more dangerous. If Mukhin was arrested, his rolls of film chronicled everything forbidden, from music concerts to drug consumption. His photos were printed in samizdat, (literally translating to ‘self-published’), a makeshift format to evade official Soviet censorship. “There’s continuity between poets, like [Anna] Akhmatova and [Vladimir] Mayakovsky, and rock musicians,” Mukhin says on a Zoom call from Moscow, by way of publisher Oliver Bergger as translator. “It’s the same circumstances of creating within a culture whose power structures discourage or prevent art forms. Russian artists who convey ‘real life’ stand in conflict with Russian power.”

Later, Mukhin switched his focus to street photography, often tinged with a sly sense of absurdist humor. He had a canny relationship to crowds and group dynamics, creating ensemble portraiture of disparate people in plain sight. He was attentive to the contrast between old world and new world within the same frame, like the juxtaposition of a Soviet building behind a modern-looking businessman, or a Western brand of cigarettes advertised aloft from a trio of women in conventional dress traversing a crosswalk. Discretion being paramount, Mukhin would time the shutter to release when people were walking in front of watching guards.

In 1991, when the USSR fell, it became harder to photograph in the street. People took it as a form of aggression. So Mukhin paused, pivoting to photographing monuments. He restarted street photography in the mid-1990s, feeling it was important to take the temperature of the culture through encounters with ordinary people. While other photographers were chronicling the war in Chechnya, he wanted to capture what the effect of the war was doing to urban denizens at home; how the feeling of catastrophe impacted the day-to-day.

Mukhin’s images tacitly demystify Russian clichés – the ones exported through folkloric literary tropes or bombastic political caricature – by virtue of simply showcasing anonymous people in daily life. He notes that Europeans interpret his street photos as “documentary,” whereas Russians deemed his images “too artistic” for press use (and in fact, his work has been little published on his home turf). Mukhin himself refuses to qualify his career, which has taken different directions, from artist portraits to cataloguing ceremonial affairs. 

His book Resistance – which encapsulates twenty years of demonstrations across the entire political spectrum, from communism to fascism – “shows neither sympathy nor antipathy” with any particular cause. Putting them together highlights what society broadly encompasses. “Today, there’s no right to political engagement,” Mukhin says of his native country — within photography, or otherwise. His aim is to be descriptive, to have a birds-eye view, rather than a point of view.

Still, when banal gestures – like listening to punk music – become politicized because they can’t be done openly, cataloguing these discreet transgressions becomes a meaningful gesture. “The earliest images I made when I was young, I wasn’t conscious of them as political,” he says. “The readership was small, so that lack of reach was not politically effective.” But when expressing oneself freely isn’t an option, the act of doing it anyway is a bold act, irregardless of activist intention.

Générations: From the USSR to the New Russia, 1985-2021 is on show at Maison Doisneau until 09 January

“I was less interested in capturing these images than in looking for ways to tell the wider story of Russia’s Arctic deployment, and to offer a sense of the remoteness of the place. I was keen, too, to try and convey what daily life must be like for the soldiers posted to such a challenging corner of the Earth.” 

After a period of adverse weather that left Ducke stranded in the nearby city of Murmansk for days on end, unable to leave the mainland, he eventually arrived at the Trefoil Base aboard a Ilyushin Il-76 military cargo plane. On arrival, he was immediately swept off on a tour of the facilities. The troops were busy making preparations for a launch of the Bastion anti-ship missile system and they were eager to demonstrate its power. As he explains, this “was a show of might” intended to awe friend and foe alike. But for Ducke, his focus lay elsewhere. “I was less interested in capturing these images than in looking for ways to tell the wider story of Russia’s Arctic deployment, and to offer a sense of the remoteness of the place,” he says. “I was keen, too, to try and convey what daily life must be like for the soldiers posted to such a challenging corner of the Earth.” 

The sheer isolation of the military base is shown in Ducke’s photos of the various facilities, which are almost disappearing, “against a backdrop of such white emptiness that the horizon becomes difficult to discern”. In every image, this icy void envelops the few figures and buildings that make up the base. The only cultural sign on the frozen expanse is a tiny wooden church that stands in juxtaposition with the sterile metal structures nearby. Elsewhere, an icebreaker can be seen clearing a path for a cargo ship following closely behind. Ducke says he remembers the silence that surrounded him as he watched the ship slowly making its way through the ice. He remembers feeling “as if we were at the end of the world”.

The sluggish movement of solitary ships and the small, reclusive groups of soldiers may soon be a thing of the past, however. With the Arctic melting at an unprecedented rate, Russia’s Arctic border is rapidly becoming easier to navigate, raising questions about how this will affect activity in the region.

In the event of war, Russia’s formidable size may prove to be its greatest weakness – whereas the frozen Arctic Ocean once acted as a barrier to the land, it is now transforming into a large access point. Military outposts like the Trefoil Base have been set up as a deterrent to any countries that may be interested in the changes unfolding in the area. NATO, for instance, has already begun sailing convoys of ships into nearby waters, testing the Russian response to its presence.

But according to Ducke, an increase in military operations may not be the only result of the Arctic’s opening up. He believes that disappearing ice may also act as an invitation to the Russian people. Looking forward, he says “I am curious how the increased access to the Arctic and its resources will affect communities in Russia’s Far North. Many of the settlements on Russia’s Arctic borderline have faced a massive outflux of population since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but as it becomes more accessible this might change, possibly bringing new life to a remote and isolated region.”

emileducke.de

Bociaga arrived in Myanmar at the beginning of 2020 as a traveller. He had been travelling in Southeast Asia for the last three years after graduating with an MA in Law. When the pandemic hit, he chose to live out the restrictions in Myanmar rather than take a relief flight home. “When I got more freedom to move around, I started investigating different things, stories,” he says. Travelling reignited his childhood passion for photography and it soon became a job. “I found it interesting to capture moments which are linked to certain events, or certain transformations,” he says.

By March 2021, Bociaga had attended nearly 30 protests in Myanmar to document the peaceful resistance to the military coup that happened in February. He began working with the DPA German Press Agency at the time, and eventually published photo stories with CNN, Deutsche Welle and the leading regional magazine, The Diplomat.

Bociaga had been in Myanmar for nearly a year, when the military, the Tatmadaw, arrested the country’s elected leaders, declared a state of emergency and established their own rule on 01 February 2021. Instantly, civilians began protesting. In the first few days, people made their anger heard – bashing pots and pans and tooting their horns – then, a group of medical staff went on strike. On 04 February, the first group of protestors took to the streets of Mandalay, Myanmar’s second biggest city.

The photographer was captivated by the passion of the people around him, fighting to keep democracy alive. “I wanted to show their anger toward the junta and [how] they had very peaceful intentions,” he says. “Now, the police have escalated it to complete chaos.”

By the end of February, over 1,000 people had been detained and 50 people killed by security forces. The descent to violence was gradual, Bociaga says, with the military first dispersing crowds with rubber pellets, before it began open-firing at protests and harassing protestors. “My photography emanates to people abroad the persistence of the demonstrators, that many of them will stand up to the police officers and resist their gunfire.”

“As foreigners, we should be ready to take more risks because if local journalists are arrested, they have less chances of getting out, because they have no embassy”

Multiple journalists were wounded during violent crackdowns in May and June 2021, and there were at least 32 journalists in Myanmar’s prisons as of 01 July 2021, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Bociaga feels lucky for being detained for only 13 days. His experiences spurred him on.

“As foreigners, we should be ready to take more risks because if local journalists are arrested, they have less chances of getting out, [because] they have no embassy,” he says. “It motivated me to work in hostile environments like Myanmar.” He wishes to return to Myanmar if democracy is reinstated. “It was heart-breaking to see young people live in such circumstances to lose their lives,” he says, noting how unimaginable it was to see the country transform from peace to conflict in the short year he was there.

The coup is the first conflict the 29-year-old photographer has covered, but it hasn’t been his last. After he was released from prison in Myanmar, he briefly returned home to Poland before moving on to Ethiopia, where he spent three months researching the conflict between government forces and regional groups. Bociaga is now writing a book with the aim to unpack the complexities of the conflict and its impact on the region. 

In Ethiopia, Bociaga kept a low profile doing his journalistic work because locals weren’t receptive to foreign press, although he still aimed to capture “the humanitarian crisis which the Ethiopian authorities claim doesn’t exist”. In Myanmar, he felt the contrary: he was there to elevate people’s voices beyond their own country.

Bociaga is unsure what the future holds, but he hopes his coverage has had an impact. “For people living abroad, out of Myanmar, it might simply be unimaginable what their situation is. That’s why it’s so important to take photographs, or videos because attention is very short these days. They might not read much of the text, especially like this crisis in Myanmar that’s already six months, so the impact of photography is important.

robert-bociaga.com

Whilst this seasonal transition is uniquely inherent to the polar circles, many other unnatural and worrisome changes are underfoot in this frozen archipelago. Skubatz explains that climate change, which is heating the permafrost in the Arctic, is “resulting in changes in the landscape and greater instability on the hillside, increasing the probability of landslides and avalanches”.

This is catastrophic, as permafrost – ground where the temperature is below zero degrees Celsius for a minimum of two successive years – is crucial to life on Svalbard.

“All of the buildings in the Svalbard settlements are built on piles [wooden posts] that are driven into the permafrost, and the roads, bridges, airports and other infrastructure are also constructed on permafrost,” says Skubatz. “Thawing permafrost can damage buildings, infrastructure, and cultural heritage sites. Houses in Longyearbyen are sagging and the unstable ground around the famous Svalbard Global Seed Vault is now frozen artificially.”

Man-made global warming is necessitating expensive man-made solutions to fix the many problems it is causing. Alongside artificially freezing the precious permafrost, in 2018 the Norwegian government was forced to spend millions on protective measures such as constructing fencing in the hills above Longyearbyen to combat snow build-up. Just a few years earlier, an avalanche had buried 11 homes and killed a man and toddler.

“Because of slippery ground and knee-deep snow I was not able to move as freely as I am used to. The freezing temperatures also gave me less flexibility when taking portraits and I had to protect my camera from the cold while on the snowmobile, so spontaneous shots were not really possible.”

Skubatz’s photographs of Longyearbyen, which were accompanied by an article written by Gloria Dickie, show the damage being wrought upon the town. Deep cracks in the outer walls of apartment buildings and weakened foundations are the first signs of potentially deadly outcomes. Skubatz’s own accommodation was evacuated twice during her stay for fear of being hit by avalanches from above. 

When she wasn’t hindered by looming natural disasters, the environment’s intrinsic inhospitality made shooting the story difficult.

“Because of slippery ground and knee-deep snow I was not able to move as freely as I am used to,” she says. “The freezing temperatures also gave me less flexibility when taking portraits and I had to protect my camera from the cold while on the snowmobile, so spontaneous shots were not really possible.”

She adds: “Also, when we drove to the glaciers, we entered a snowstorm that was so strong it was impossible to see anything – during such moments in the open wilderness the risk of a polar bear attack increases significantly.”

Frightening as the prospect of being hunted by a polar bear may be, this is an expected, tangible danger when navigating the frozen terrain of the Arctic. A less tangible, and far more dangerous threat however, lies deep under the surface of the icy expanse. When unleashed, greenhouse gases stored in the permafrost underfoot – some of which have been held safely inside since the last ice age – wreak havoc on the atmosphere, and the consequences are far-reaching. 

Longyearbyen and the various other settlements within the Arctic Circle are very much at the mercy of mankind, as receding permafrost caused by global warming, which grows exponentially, threatens the very foundations that they are built upon. One day in the not so distant future, after the ice has disappeared and sea levels have risen, a polar bear attack may seem a very far-fetched prospect indeed.

marzenaskubatz.com

But, even for children in higher-income areas, the challenges of underdeveloped infrastructure persist and they are required to adapt. “Some students [with laptops] who live in hilly or mountainous areas find it difficult to attend online lessons,” explains Rudianto. “The internet signal is weak and unstable, so they must travel to the edge of a cliff or a forest or the side of a road to be able to listen to the material being delivered to them by their teachers.” While the pandemic has not been the great equaliser that it was initially purported to be, it is clear that, in Indonesia at least, sacrifices are being made.

Though some schools have since reopened, in areas with low vaccine coverage, many remain closed. For the students, in-person learning is now long overdue. “The students are getting bored of studying at home. They have been forced to do that for more than a year and they long to go to school and be face-to-face with teachers and friends,” says Rudianto. “I plan to make portraits of them when they can finally go offline. Someday soon I hope.”

agoesrudianto.com

It was during her first tour of that hospital that Daniels noticed a set of doors walled off from the rest of the building. Two people were standing behind them, waving at her through portholes. Staff explained that it was a protective unit for patients suffering with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, therefore the door was locked to prevent them from getting lost or into trouble.

“[Immediately] I just thought, yeah, that’s it,” Daniels says. “It was very clear to me from that moment that that was a significant and symbolic image, and that I wanted to work with that as a way of telling a story.” Daniels stayed in the hospital for five days to a week every month, becoming familiar with every aspect of the institution, assisting staff members with routine jobs like waking residents or serving them breakfast.

Capturing her subjects, however, was far from easy. Daniels spent hours with Alzheimer’s patients, striving to represent their plight in a dignified way, but she was also struck by the fact that many were not fully cognisant of her presence. There were legal challenges as well.  Clearing authorisations with the hospital and family members took nearly two years.

“Even when you’re trying to be very philosophical, or just trying to make a point, you still deal with real people with family members,” Daniels says. “They have sons and daughters, nephews and nieces and granddaughters, and they are much loved. And, of course, I had to spend a lot of time getting to know their families. 

“It’s [also] not a given to photograph someone who might give their consent in the moment, but who might not remember you in two minutes,” Daniels adds. “So that was something that I struggled with. And the only way I could overcome that was to get consent.”

Using a Bronica 6×6 camera “with a very noisy wind-on motor”, Daniels was heavily influenced by Paul Graham’s work Beyond Caring, which captured British dole offices in the mid-80s. Just as Graham eschewed the then popular trend of colourless portraiture, Daniels resisted “stark and dark” depictions that were used to document geriatric institutions in the past.

The loud clunky motor on the camera itself was also instructive, with residents responding to it in dynamic and surprising ways. One man who had had a keen interest in photography would say “there’s the Kodak” whenever he heard the motor whirring. 

“I didn’t want it to be discreet, I wanted the opposite of that,” Daniels says. “The camera was just so noisy, and chunky. It had that kind of sound every time I took a picture which caused a bit of a stir, which was good, because that’s what was needed.”

Over the course of the three years, Daniels also became something of a carer herself, transporting patients who had become preoccupied with the door back to the familiar confines of their wards. For the same reason it was important that the camera “be with” the patients on their side of the door. Rather than framing their lived experience as one of entrapment, Daniels’ images reject that easy trope, instead focusing on life spent within this specialised unit.

“It became a way to justify my presence, the fact that I was trying to help in some way, just being a voluntary person who was there,” Daniels says. “There wasn’t even permanent staff in that unit. So they were left to themselves a lot of the time.”

In 2016, the series was awarded the Bob and Diane Fund, a $5,000 grant for visual storytelling about Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. “It’s very hard to document Alzheimer’s disease,” said charity founder Gina Martin. “I think people will find [Maja’s] work to be very smart, fresh and modern.”

“Our societies are so strongly ruled by a youth imperative. But if you are old and you’ve lived your life, and you no longer serve any production line, you are more easily disposable. And that is, for me, a horrible way of considering human life”

Ultimately, Daniels does not see the images as a critique of hospitals or carers, but an examination of “our institutionalised way of living which protects us from seeing certain things”. It is a project that has only acquired greater relevance due to shifting demographics. With an expanding population of elderly people across Europe, caused by falling birth rates and longer life expectancy, more elderly patients need access to specialised care than ever before. With these rates only set to increase, the potential strain that will inflict on public health services is a challenge policy makers are struggling to overcome. 

As Maja points out, the policies in question – which commonly involve shutting the elderly off from society in care homes and palliative wards – also reflect broader attitudes to aging and dying. In fact, they say a great deal about how society ranks people according to their output, rather than their humanity. 

“Our societies are so strongly ruled by a youth imperative. It’s related to production value. If you’re useful in some way you have more importance,” Daniels says. “But if you are old and you’ve lived your life, and you no longer serve any production line, you are more easily disposable. And that is, for me, a horrible way of considering human life.”

majadaniels.com

One image reveals Darni’s old ID card, expired in 2012, with her dead name. The card – a key that grants Indonesian citizens access to education, financial support, and healthcare – is tattered, her image indiscernible. As Pieter explains, 70 percent of trans women don’t have valid ID cards, meaning they had no access to health services as the virus swept through Indonesia. “Most trans women leave their home when they are teenagers due to domestic conflicts over their identity. They leave their family without having official documents and proper education…Practically, this obstacle has dragged them into the poverty cycle.”

Many of these women lost their jobs early in the pandemic and couldn’t afford living at home. Barred from receiving vaccinations, testing services, and government benefits, many were forced to work in fields where risk of infection was high. Pieter recalls a painful refrain among his subjects: “I’d rather die from the coronavirus than from hunger.” 

And yet, while exposing the impossible conditions that many trans women were forced to live under, Pieter captures a sense of communal resilience and personal fortitude in those he photographs. His images, which won the Wellcome Photography Prize 2021, are focused and sharp, exploding in lavish reds, blues, and corals. Women are rarely depicted alone, instead surrounded by their chosen family. “I aimed to deliver to humanity the universal secret of hope, which is to find balance between fear and strength,” says Pieter.

Lila, a trans woman in Serpong, South Tangerang, sits on the floor as she is tested for HIV. By her side is Aurel, who works for Pelita Tangsel, an organisation which helps trans women receive health services without official documentation. Other images show two individuals touching cheeks, mid-embrace; an impoverished area in Depok, West Java, where a community of trans women live; and a woman, Mama Dona, resting on the knee of Mama Yuli, who heads the Indonesian Transgender Communication Forum. During the pandemic, Mama Yuli distributed resources and gave financial support to Indonesia’s trans community, which she fundraised from individuals and churches, in lieu of government benefits. It was Mama Yuli who first helped Pieter access the Indonesian trans community and meet his future subjects.

Pieter’s images were partly inspired by realist paintings, imbuing the subject matter with grandeur. In one, three women kneel on a bed in a row, styling each other’s hair. Each wears a dress: one in cerulean blue with lace detail, two in floral sundresses. They sit on a floral bedspread, encircled in stuffed toys. Unlike their cosy, childhood-like backdrop, the three are ornately accessorised and made up. They stare right at the camera: confrontational, serious, regal. 

In September 2020, Pieter’s images were published in National Geographic Indonesia, copies of which he gifted to his subjects “as a form of honour”. He described their reactions as diverse: “From being touched, to admiring their beauty. When I saw them looking at themselves in the magazine, it elevated their emotions on so many levels.”

His hope for Between Color and Voice is simple but hard-fought: to help trans women in Indonesia live full, safe, equal lives. Pieter explains that since April 2021, the government has become more proactive about providing its trans community with ID cards, though it refuses to change the document’s gender column to match that of the corresponding person. “The system, both society and government, tend to silence their voices just because they are the individuals who stand for their faith,” Pieter says. “I wanted to make every single portrait a representation of what they feel, how they fight the obstacles in this difficult time, and how they strengthen their solidarity.”

Trans Woman: Between Colour and Voice by Yoppy Pieter is the winner of this year’s Wellcome Photography Prize.