You can buy the bookzine HERE
ARTIST STATEMENT
In my photography I feel attached towards the nature of longing and obsession, towards the temporary and fading nature of everything. I started this project while in lockdown. I had to suspend my photographic practice for quite a long time. Meeting and spending time with new people became quite a deal. This made me stop and look closer to my archives. I have stacks of photos as I always print them at the lab. Same as I did being teenager. I know everything will end but those prints will last forever. Deus conservat omnia.
I realized how much time gone by since I made my first photo. Some of those moments stuck with me forever, like a vivid dream, colorful in my head. But others were so desaturated and bleary that I barely remember it. Almost like I see the picture for the first time that’s made by somebody else, not me.
Dim fragments appear as if my mind is obscured by something — some parts are missing. It came naturally to me that I can put visually my emotional experience of absence, recreate the blank spots that were «staining» my memory. That immediately brought ‘Heavy Clouds’ to my mind. I’m interested in what’s uncovered deliberately and what’s hidden unintentionally. I’m interested in the confluence of two mediums, whether I reveal or hide. Those textures — an ode to fading! I never had the ability to write a poetry. But I have it in my pictures.
HEAVY CLOUDS bookzine is based on an eponymous project and consists of over 50 artworks, acrylic on black & white photo paper.
Original images by Vic Bakin between 2012 and 2020. Bookzine also contains an essay by Ukrainian fellow writer Sergiy Rafalskyi.