Mykhaylo Palinchak

Occupation Diaries is a documentary project that captures the experience of occupation. The protagonists are Ukrainians who found the courage to put down on paper their daily lives under occupation. After their release or escape, they chose to share memories that they would probably prefer to forget. The project is based on the photographs of heroes and their diaries, personal objects, and the landscapes of liberated Ukrainian territories wounded by the war. The project fills the information vacuum caused by the occupation. It collects, documents, and researches authentic written testimonies, making it possible to fill in the silences with the voices of those who had no hope of ever being heard, the voices of people who managed to overcome the boundaries of fear, war, occupation, and even time itself.

The photo project “Altered” explores through the medium of photography the different regions of Ukraine that were affected most by the war with Russian Federation to document and preserve and the stories and testimonials of the witnesses. The aim is to catalog the impact of the war on the country and its landscape, as well as the local people and society overall, with a particular focus on war crimes. Expeditions will be made to the regions that were heavily damaged and previously occupied. These are the Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Kherson and Donbass regions of Ukraine.