NOMINATED BY PAOLA KUDACKI
30—KHARKIV, UKRAINE
Iva Sidash makes art under extreme circumstances. In her ongoing project “Seeing the Unseen,” she captures everyday life on the frontlines of the Ukraine war. This year, she won an Ian Parry Photojournalism Grant and the Women Photograph Fellowship, among other accolades.
“I use photography to look at life in its most fragile forms, and to carry those truths forward. How do people stay human in the middle of war? What does care look like under pressure—when the world is breaking but someone still folds laundry, brushes a child’s hair, sets the table? The [images] touch the fear that this war will become normal, that the people behind the headlines will disappear from view.
I’m afraid of the kind of silence where no one’s looking anymore. But I didn’t want to repeat the usual images of destruction and violence. I wanted to show the small acts of care that keep people going. Documentary photography lets me ask questions without forcing answers.
I photographed [a woman named Zoya] in her ruined apartment in North Saltivka, Kharkiv—it was destroyed by Russian shelling. She said to me, ‘Show this to people. Show it to the world. Let them see what is happening to us, because if the Russians take everything, at least the truth will remain.’ I still carry that moment with me. She wasn’t asking for help; she was asking to be seen.”
in your life?
