Dark Matter — Alena Grom

In 2022, Russia occupied the Kiev region. After de-occupation, traces of massacres of civilians were discovered. 161 multi-story and 4,835 private houses were completely destroyed. I live in Bucha, and the war landscape has become my daily life.
I photograph the aftermath of the war as documentary evidence of the events. In places where life was boiling not so long ago, there is a chaos of destruction. There is blackness and ash in these photographs. It’s as if the aftermath of the Big Bang created dark matter that swallowed up space. War is the disintegration of everything, the explosion of structures and matter.

These photographs reminded me of the work of Lionel, an American-German artist who taught at the Bauhaus. Reality in his work is based not on the depiction of observed impressions, but on the transformation of perceptions into spatial-plastic, multidimensional structures. During the First World War, Lionel’s works observed the conflict of swift verticals and horizontals, resulting in diagonal forms that radiated a dynamic elevation.

Ukraine 2023