Pretty Ghetto

“Pretty Ghetto” is an album-initiation that tells about the search for oneself in a big city, about the desire to stand out brought to the maximum, about a moment of carefreeness in the early 2010s — a reality lost forever.

The series of photographs of the same name “Pretty Ghetto” presents shots of brightly dressed people, as if opposed to the mighty buildings and structures of Kharkiv. The author emphasizes their otherness, marginality, protest against the eternal preoccupation and monotony of routine. Surrealistic, carefully staged photographs raise the ever-current question of the nature of maximalist protest (is it sincerity or posturing?), about the gaze of another — a point of view from outside the photo lens that modifies self-expression; about whether it is possible to stand out among those like yourself.

The second series “38” shows Polina’s development as a photographer, an experiment and a constant search for a method. The model for many of the photos in the first series, Polina's close friend Yaroslava Diuna, and Polina herself switch places and recreate shots taken in the past.
source: www.booklion.lviv.ua