photographic exhibition by Yevgenia Belorusets
OKK Gallery, 29 Prinzenallee, Berlin
Exhibition opening: 19.00, 31st January, 2014
31.1.-20.2., Thursdays - Sundays, 3-7p.m.
“Euromaidan – occupied spaces” is collection of photographs depicting everyday life at the epicentre of a mass protest, focussing on the Euromaidan protest in Kiev, Ukraine.
Yevgenia Belorusets’ photos show people spending night after night standing in protest on freezing streets, sleeping in occupied government buildings. In the darkness of this night, they can come under attack from riot police, and must stand shoulder to shoulder to defend the hard-won main square of the city from the State. Winter’s day is also spent on this square, or warming up in underpasses and cafes.
Scenes of highly unstable life in Ukraine today, transported into the sheltered European reality of an exhibition space in Berlin, remind us of the necessity of refreshing our definitions of our political goals. Fascism can grow fast in such situations. But at the same time, in this case, the State is turning into a dictatorship.
Belorusets’ photographs talk about the existence and the blurring of borders, but also about solidarity, and its ability to overcome these borders.