Bird in Flight Prize ‘19 Finalist: Maidan Faces

Mykhaylo Palinchak, Ukraine

In February Ukraine marked the 5th anniversary of the Euromaidan or Revolution of Dignity as it is called in Ukraine. In 2014, 98 people were killed in the center of Kyiv during protests and clashes with riot police.

5 years later I walked the street where most of the people were killed that day and noticed photos of those people ganging on the trees left there by relatives and friends. Over time, the photos began to fade, the colors swam, some of them crept in with the mold, while others almost completely erased almost the same like time fading our memory of those events.

Looking at those photos that should remind us about people who sacrifice that most valuable they have – their lives, I remembered the Susan Sontag quote: “Today everything exists to end in a photograph.”

But what will remain even if the photos will disappear?

The project is also the winner of the Bird in Flight Prize special nomination Panasonic Readers’ Choice Award.

Over two weeks more than 2,500 people took part in the open voting for the best project in the special nomination Panasonic Readers’ Choice Award. As a result, Mykhaylo Palinchak’s Maidan Faces series received the largest number of votes.