Don't Worry, I'm Fine

It is an intimate diary of encounters in my studio, a stopover in a journey no one chose to take. It’s about people from my homeland Ukraine who’ve faced the reality of war; these are the portraits and stories thoroughly recorded to remember

“How are you?” I ask. She looks at me as if the question itself doesn’t make any sense, like something is missing. How do you even begin to explain about what it means to lose everything—suddenly and irrevocably? Where do you find the language to speak about those weird everyday things that became your life?

I couldn’t fix her. I couldn’t fix anyone, not even myself. My world shattered. I felt null and void.

The one thing that felt important for me was to photograph her. I wanted to preserve lucid memories of these first days or even years, to leave a visual record of how we felt in this time as a reminder, as a future reference point.

The portraits in this project were taken between 2022 and 2024 at my studio in Bratislava. After the war began, I put out an invitation for displaced people from my homeland, Ukraine. Mothers and children, teenagers and seniors, athletes and people with disabilities responded, all who had faced the reality of war. Some of them remained in Slovakia or Austria, others returned to Ukraine, while some continued their journey to other countries.

In the slightly abstract studio environment—completely detached from the outside world—we sat, talked and created photographs. The sessions represented a kind of time capsule, a quiet space where a few fleeting moments of these permanently disrupted lives could be preserved, memories frozen in a time and place that felt very distant from the new reality that must be reckoned with.

From more than 70 photoshoots, 40 stories and over 100 portraits found their way into this book project.

Each photography session was an attempt to bridge a gap I could feel but couldn’t cross. The feeling was strange, like nothing I had ever felt before. Even with people I knew well, it was as if they had emerged from another world. We were watching the same horror film play on but from different sides of the screen. Theirs was the side that is tangible. People from all walks of life arrived with information and experiences we here in relative safety could only pretend to understand. There were subtle yet substantial changes that were easy to sense, but hard to describe. The sense was wholly surreal.

Behind each face here is a unique, layered and intensely lonely personal story. All intersect in this singular place, woven together to form a larger narrative.

"I'm fine," comes the reply, eventually.

A part of this project (2023–2024) was realized under the mentorship of Magnum photographer Jonas Bendiksen. The project is a Silver Winner of Tokyo International Foto Awards (2022). Selected images have been featured in publications such as Ukraine: Love+War (2024, FotoEvidence) and Fresh Eyes (2024, GUP Magazine). The project was exhibited in various cities of Slovakia (2022).

Currently, I’m working on the book (due in 2025).