Serafima & Jevhen
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Dates2018 - 2026
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Author
- Topics Documentary
- Locations Ukraine, Horishni Plavni
Serafima and Jevhen, a couple who shared their lives together for 65 years until Jevhen passed away. Jevhen’s dementia, Serafima’s care, and the quiet shadow of war reveal how love, patience, and humanity sustain life even through pain.
Ukraine, Horishni Plavni, 2018 – 2026
This series tells the story of Serafima and Jevhen. They shared their lives together for 65 years until Jevhen passed away. For Serafima, life goes on, and Jevhen’s absence is unmistakable.
Eight years document not only a period of life but the relentless movement between closeness and absence, between memory and forgetting. They show the rhythm of their daily routines, the quiet endurance, and the small changes. It becomes clear that life consists of a balance between joy and pain, with moments of happiness and instances of loss.
Jevhen suffered from dementia, gradually losing his orientation, his language, and his identity. Serafima held together the fragile structure of their daily life. Her life was marked by love and care, by pain and the weight of responsibility. Each day demanded dedication, patience, and the strength to continue despite exhaustion.
When Jevhen died, the apartment remained, the memories remained, and yet everything changed. Serafima remained. She continues to live, between loneliness and duty, between stillness and new routines that may one day provide support again.
Over all of this lies the invisible shadow of war, echoing like a constant background noise throughout the couple’s life. In the ongoing presence of danger and uncertainty, everyday actions gain even greater significance. Born in 1933/34, they experienced the Second World War as children, and now the tragic historical bracket closes with a new war.
The series “Serafima & Jevhen” shows that experiences of love, loss, care, aging, and enduring pain can affect everyone. It tells of the fragility of existence and the necessity of preserving humanity, even when life brings suffering.
This series is also my personal story. Serafima and Jevhen are my grandparents. They were and remain for me a home and a place of refuge. The love they gave each other, they also gave to me. It is what has stayed with me – the foundation that remains, no matter what comes.
This photo project also includes an installation that presents a poetic film:
