Exhibition of Ukrainian conceptual photography ‘Refraction’ in Odesa

From May 3 to 17, the Hrushevsky Scientific Library in Odesa will host a conceptual photography festival called «Refraction».

The exhibition features works by photographers from various Ukrainian cities, including Odesa, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Khmelnytskyi, Dnipro, Kropyvnytskyi, Kryvyi Rih, Poltava, and also from the German town of Fladungen.

The central theme of the festival is the transformation of identity under the influence of the environment.

Refraction is not just a physical phenomenon that shows how light changes direction. It symbolizes how our self-perception evolves over time, experience, and circumstances. When light passes through glass or water, it creates new forms, outlines, and illusions. Similarly, a person experiencing change may lose their integrity and become unrecognizable even to themselves. However, this can also lead to a transformation into something new, more confident, and creative, – said the curator of the exhibition, Maya Makeyeva.

One of the artists, Nata Chernenka, noted that art during wartime serves as a psychological release.

I titled my work «The Fold of Deleuze». The photograph features my bag. I unexpectedly noticed this nylon fold one evening after training. The philosopher Gilles Deleuze once described the fold as a unit of matter, – explained Nata Chernenka.