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'Epitome' by Kyiv-based artist Vic Bakin combines photographs from his archive with recent images made in war-torn areas, all printed in a makeshift darkroom in his apartment. Collectively, the entangled images create a personal visual poem exploring themes of fragility, beauty, masculinity, war and uncertainty.

“The process of making the palm-sized prints became, for me, a meditation, an urge to find personal balance, and a contemplative search for meaning in a wartime reality.”

Bakin, a self-taught photographer, had been making images of Ukrainian youth for many years, often focusing on queer communities and sub-cultures—all united by the shared experience of coming of age. He began to revisit his archive of work to create a project exploring themes of masculinity and youth. For this purpose, in 2020 he began to print his work in a darkroom in his bathroom, enjoying the alchemy of the process and the tactile nature of the prints with all their imperfections. Then war came to Ukraine and the tone of the project began to metamorphosize. Some of those in the portraits would now be enlisted to fight in the war.

Bakin began to photograph landscapes scarred by war alongside damaged trees, rivers and fields of marching sunflowers. He would now develop the prints during air raids with a womb-like red light of the darkroom providing a place of safety and escape from reality. At one point he ran out of paper fixer and continued to use the same mixture until it was exhausted. The chemical imperfections also resulted in red and purple visual bruises on many of the images, an allegory for blood on the land.

“While navigating the wounded land, I look for a glimmer of hope in people and places. I keep coming back to the same trinity that absorbed me—the soil, body, and warmth of a distant landscape. For me, uncertainty, fragility, and chaos, but also tenderness and hope, are the real essence of the series.”