Stopped Life

• Photographer
  Halyna Vitiuk
• Photo Date
  December 2023

During the first year of the war in Ukraine, life stood still in anticipation. In our rented apartment, we lived out of suitcases, holding onto only the essentials. Cooking daily in one pot, we restricted ourselves to the bare necessities. Awareness of the war came slowly. Initially hopeful for a quick return to normalcy, we realized it meant a completely new life. These flowers, symbols of our peaceful past, froze like our lives at their peak. They signify a suspended time. Only through rebirth can we blossom again, rise, and flourish.

Halyna Vitiuk is an art and food photographer. She was born in 1983 in Odesa, Ukraine. Since February 2022 she has been temporarily based in Brasov, Romania. Her art focuses on finding the interesting in the simple and creating magic out of the ordinary. In her work she enjoys using everyday objects, food and flowers, inventing unusual combinations and rethinking their meanings. Through bright colors and nuanced tones in her artworks, she aims to convey a good mood, joy, inspiration and a desire for viewers to make their own visual discoveries.