Nothing but a Curtain

The end of communism meant the loss of former identities and the acquisition of a new sense of individuality. In the former Eastern Bloc, the end of communism led to the escalation of gender-specific segregation in the labour market, contributing to a ‘feminisation of poverty’ and economic divisions between men and women.

To this day, growing up in Central and Eastern Europe means facing male-dominated political systems, sexist stereotype, restrictive beauty standards and religious expectations.

I travelled along the former Iron Curtain border, across countries which used to divide the continent to document how younger generations experience traces of the obsolete world order.

In the summer of 2021, I travelled 4,552 miles (7325.80 km) across the former “Eastern bloc” to document post-Soviet gender identity. Visiting 20 cities across 10 countries, tracing the border known as the “Iron Curtain”,I photographed and interviewed 104 people about their personal experiences of gender and womanhood. For millions, the end of Soviet communism, symbolised by the 1989 Berlin Wall collapse, brought about a transition at once personal, social and political. It is women, non-binary, genderfluid and transgender, who like myself were born during this transition that are the focus of Nothing But a Curtain.

I embarked on this journey, with a Soviet-made Kiev 80 camera, to highlight the heterogeneity of life and identity in these countries and through this, resist the homogenising, xenophobic and misogynistic legacy of Western Cold War thinking—thinking that condensed millions of people into a “Bloc.” “Nothing But a Curtain” also critiques the contemporary male-dominated political systems, sexist stereotypes and restrictive beauty standards that many women, transgender, non-binary and gender fluid people face in the region.