Viacheslav
Poliakov

When I just started as a photographer, my pictures looked dim and dirty to me, especially compared to the top artists I was trying to follow. I was sure that my lack of skills and talent are the reasons.

When I went abroad for the first time, it was a surprise: my photos instantly started to look more "professional".

It took years of travel to start seeing my home from the outside. A gray faceless soviet heritage, which never looked great, was falling apart before my eyes during my entire childhood.

I'm constantly trying to capture and share the unique aesthetic of my immediate environment. I record a combination of natural forms and human impact. Wild vegetation and signs of natural decay on the old walls, bleached by the southern sun of Kherson. Rusty metal fences and organic waste used as fertilisers in backyards of Lviv. Graffiti layers on the gray soviet lime bricks. Old pain, re-captured and healed by the nature.

With the full scale invasion of Russia in 2022, under the influence of images of torn-apart bodies in my news feeds, I’ve started to tear apart the pictures I had. Mixing the records of old pain, which had been almost vanished in time, with the new pain, live and growing.

Nevertheless, it’s my home, and I love my Pompeii. I use remains of my forever-falling-apart world as building bricks for my story. I want to leave things in a better state than I’ve found. It's time to stop this ugly loop