On my way to a military camp of the Right Sector (a battalion formed of volunteers fighting on the side of the Ukrainian army in the armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine – editor’s note), I was pretty much sure that what I would see would be a kingdom of idiocy that the Ukrainian army has been for the past 23 years. An absence of roads and a grey landscape behind the window only strengthened my anticipation of seeing dismal things. A rusty gate, a shabby checkpoint, people with ‘Kalashnikov’ machine guns all around – everything was just like in Desna or at an interior troops base.
The first striking thing was that it was a kids’ play area. That is, it had been for kids before fighters of the volunteer corps converted it into their base. I found it difficult to associate the colourful posters with fairytale characters with the military. The cognitive dissonance was intensified by sudden gunshots and the resulting moderate panic.
The larger part of the camp inhabitants turned out to be Russian-speaking – something I could hardly imagine. Because for me the Right Sector was firmly associated with tales of brutal nationalists who don’t count till three before they shoot your brains out.
I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have any heartwarming conversations with the fighters. Once I found myself in the training ground I couldn’t bring myself to ask permission to take a few pictures. I was pretty certain they would say no. Surprisingly, thirty minutes later, the guys with machine guns were posing in front of my camera.
My personal expectations and their total indifference to my experiences in that camp gave me the idea to do the “Associations” series that would show the personality of the situation, and much less of the Right Sector “fighter.” The starting point for me were the children’s posters I could see all around the camp because for most of us childhood is the period of total safety, serenity and comfort. I asked the Right Sector volunteers to associate the slogans on those posters with their own experiences and emotions. That simple game helped me to do very simple portraits – of normal people, not soldiers.
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