When our paths cross

"When our paths cross" explores the encounters with people and places in Ukraine during 2024, capturing the raw, unpredictable moments of daily life amidst the war. Through portraits, it reflects on the profound impact of the conflict on Ukraine’s society

"When our paths cross" is the fourth part of my work on Ukraine, which began in 2023.
With this series, I wanted to focus on the concept of encounter. The encounter with people, places, during my travels in Ukraine that started in 2024.
To leave room for the random, the unpredictable, the pure encounter.
As I wandered through the country, walking through streets, paths, with no other purpose than perhaps to meet someone, to cross paths with a person who would provoke that emotion, that desire to create their portrait. To let the magic of the encounter take its course.
It is also about finding those places that inspire me, that speak to my subconscious, that tell the story I want to narrate. Then, it’s just a matter of meeting the characters my narrative has imagined, the ones my subjectivity wants to present to you.
Using chance to tell a story.
My intention is to present my view of Ukrainian society, to photograph fragments of my reality. To invite the viewer to reflect, to consider what it means to be a soldier, to be 16 years old in Donbas or 5 in Kharkiv, to be a woman alone or a mother in a daily life consumed by war. To speak about the everyday lives of these people whose lives have been forever changed.
What hopes? What expectations? Can one recover from such a conflict? These are some of the many questions I asked myself while taking these photographs.
"When our paths cross" paints a portrait, my portrait, of an exhausted Ukraine after three years of war, of the daily lives of these children, women, and men whose lives have been upheaved by a conflict they did not choose.