The Art of Living In The Critical Zone

• Prize
  Gold in Editorial/Political
• Photographer
  Alena Grom
• Photo Date
  April 2022

In February 2022, Russia carried out a large-scale invasion of Ukraine. Many Ukrainian cities were occupied. Among them, the city of Bucha where I lived was occupied. I managed to escape from the city, but many people remained under Russian occupation. Over 1,300 people in Bucha were killed by Russian soldiers. These events were called "The massacre of Buche". At the end of March, Russian troops left the city. I photographed people who managed to survive the occupation

Ukrainian artist and documentary photographer Alena Grom was born in Donetsk. In April 2014, she was forced to leave her hometown due to the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. Since 2017, she has lived in Bucha near Kyiv. After Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, Grom and her family became refugees twice but returned after Bucha was de-occupied. Her experiences deeply influence her work, which captures the resilience of life amid war, focusing on victims, migrants, and refugees, at the intersection of social reporting and conceptual photography.