An Intimate Portrait Of Ukraine’s Youth

Documentary Photographer Patrick Wassmann is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this documentary photography. From the project ‘Mukachevo’. To see Patrick’s body of work, click on any photograph.

This project developed quite organically on the back of the mixture of adventure and dullness during the time I spent in Ukraine. For me, this project is about Ukrainian youth and youth in general. But it’s also looking on a lot of subtopics which are part of that age – friendships, frustration, helplessness, confusion, freedom, boredom, etc. I spent a lot of time with those guys and the project reflects that. It’s a very intimate way of documenting, making a story that is very personal but at the same time very universal and mundane.

This was shot during a time when the economy in Ukraine was not doing very well and on top of that the country had to find itself as a nation after the revolution and during a war with Russia. But lives, as you can see, went on. It is a project about resilience, about how life continues in the middle of conflict despite all hardships. Media’s portrayal of a conflict is rarely the whole picture. Neither is this project, but the truth is surely somewhere in the middle.”