Taboo. Borders.

“...the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion ...”

- Benedict Anderson “Imagined Communities”

Project “Taboo.Borders.” is devoted to couples with different backgrounds in countries where mixed couples are considered taboo.

Over a year I photographed and conducted interviews with Arab-Jewish couples in Israel and Palestine and Greek-Turkish Cypriots on both parts of Cyprus. I also photographed border between Israel and Palestine (including the walls that separate Jewish settlements on Palestinian territories and cactus fences of the abandoned Palestinian villages) and the borders between Israel and its neighbors: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, as well as the Green Line that divides Southern and Northern Cyprus.

These two different regions have one topic in common: individuals who fall in love with a member of a community from/at another side of the border face abuse, threats, boycotts and even violence.

This project is intended to be continued and tell stories of borders that became taboos, or perhaps — about the taboos that became borders. What comes first is a disputable question that forms the core and essence of this work. The intention, however, goes further — to shine a light on hardships of people who try to disobey taboo and borders.

The project consists out of more than 80 images and 12 texts. So far it was fully self-sponsored. Female Photographer Grant would give me a possibility to continue my work on the project and explore the third region (Nagorny Karabakh and Armenian-Azerbaijani couples are the first on the list). Afterwards, I would like to work on a photo book that would combine both texts and images.

The interviews with the couples can be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ykbi7ceb1lq8eod/AABreIf0Avwe1lb9OdfP4JYma?dl=0

Thank you for your consideration and Im looking forward to the results,

Ekaterina Bodyagina

+49 176 881 02159

www.ekaterinabodyagina.com