Displaced Youth

This series was made in Ukraine with internally displaced youth, at the height of the Russian military invasion of Crimea in 2014. Huge numbers of Ukrainian citizens fled the ongoing Russian military operations, especially at the frontiers of the country, and this has led to a surge of job-seeking citizens in urban centers like Kiev and Donetsk. Many young adults arriving in these areas come without prior work experience and have trouble finding employment, the effect of which is swelling numbers in resettlement sites.

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Many of the displacement sites are repurposed summer camp dormitories, and the juxtaposition between the original purpose of these camps-leisure, amusement-and their unanticipated current use speaks to the fractured state of the country and the challenging young adulthood faced by the subjects of these photographs. The summer holiday ephemera in these sites are starkly contrasted by its occupants of youth living in limbo.

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The series serves, as a reminder that any country can, at once, be a site of conflict and also a place where young people have few obligations or cares beyond the yearnings of being young.