This project is a visual exploration of militarized spaces and their invisible, long-term impact on human memory, behavioral patterns, and the perception of time. But above all, it is a story about a fragile oasis of human warmth, unconditional love, and care, constructed deep inside a soulless military machine.
I spent my childhood in closed military garrisons across Belarus and Hungary on the absolute brink of the Soviet Union’s collapse. These were isolated ecosystems defined by strict discipline, enforced identity, and a pervasive defense aesthetic that deeply integrated into a child’s subconscious. Today, forty years later, these spaces appear physically as frozen ruins. But how have their physical borders transformed into internal, psychological boundaries in adult life? How did the social group of military personnel and their families experience the tectonic shift of a vast country’s dissolution?
The visual language of the entire series is intentionally rendered in strict monochrome, seamlessly binding the past and the present. I clash two polar worlds: cold, monumental black-and-white landscapes of deserted military facilities rhyme with touching, vivid black-and-white images from the family album, where we are truly happy. This is a manifesto of how, despite regulation, isolation, and constant readiness for war, parents tenderly created a territory of absolute safety for their child inside standard garrison apartments.
Over the black-and-white photographs, I use manual embroidery with red mouline threads. The color red becomes the sole vivid accent in this grey universe. Within the garrison’s geometry, the thread functions as a fence line, barbed wire, or an order forcing compliance. Yet, as it enters the territory of family photographs, it transforms into a thread of love, a blood bond, and a protective cocoon attempting to shield fragile happiness from external pressure.
