Safe threats / Boats / Faces
Ukraine
2024
Dima Tolkachov presents three series on how the full-scale war affected his perception of reality. These projects explore indirect symptoms of the war through visual metaphors and subtle details.
Safe Threat was created during an exhibition of destroyed Russian tanks in the central street of Kyiv. At the time, the capital had regained a semblance of normality. The artist felt that the exhibition illustrated the dangerous delusion of becoming a carefree spectator of the war that was still not over.
Boats bears witness to the psychological shift created by the war. Observing the sea horizon has always given the artist a sense of tranquility and peace of mind. Since the start of the conflict, the meaning has been reversed: the horizon blended with an unseen threat. It’s become the place from where warships are firing rockets. In this video, a breathing technique for anxiety relief sounds like the murmur of the waves and seems to restore the calmness of the sounds the sea once had.
Faces was created in Irpin — a city that was heavily bombed and partly occupied. Dima Tolkachov, unable to photograph people in the streets, decided to look for metaphoric faces made by bomb explosions on the surfaces of the city. It was his attempt to portray the feelings of those who suffered from the invasion without showing actual people.
With the support of the Embassy of Ukraine in France and of the Ukrainian Institute in France
In partnership with WhiteWall
Portfolio
About the artist
Born in 1989 and based in Kyiv, Dima Tolkachov is a Ukrainian multidisciplinary artist. He primarily works with photography as material for building conceptual typologies. Since the beginning of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the artist has been focused on documenting traces and exploring less visible symptoms of the war.