The Weight of Seeing
To see is to bear witness. But today, seeing also implies responsibility. It demands resilience. It becomes a way of processing trauma, of negotiating one’s place between the personal and the collective.
We live in an age of contradictions, where images of war stream in real time alongside viral memes and curated moments of joy. This coexistence creates a dissonant normalization - a blurring of the horrific and the mundane. Within this fractured visual landscape, photography takes on new urgency and meaning.
The Weight of Seeing explores the role of the photographer in times of war - not only as a witness, but as someone who carries the invisible burden of what has been seen. Many of the photographers in this selection are still living and working in war zones. Their images are shaped not only by proximity to violence, but by lived experience: by memory, loss, alienation, and the will to survive.
Some artists engage photography as a tool of documentation; others adopt a conceptual approach, creating distance or detachment; still others confront their personal realities head-on. Whether through direct testimony or metaphorical language, what unites them is a deep commitment to the act of seeing - and to continuing to see - even when reality becomes unbearable.
Though anchored in Ukraine, The Weight of Seeing speaks to a universal condition. War alters not only landscapes and bodies, but also the gaze itself. To photograph in such times is to carry fragments of history, echoes of destruction, and the quiet strength it takes to endure. This selection honors that weight - the weight of seeing.
Most of the photographers in this selection are members of MYPH - the School of Conceptual and Art Photography founded in 2018 by Sergey Melnitchenko in Mykolaiv. Beyond education, MYPH cultivates a dynamic community of emerging visual artists, providing curatorial support, fostering artistic development, and promoting their work internationally - even in the face of war.
Photographers:
Alex Charey, Alyona Fedorchenko, Anastasiia Dekhtiaruk, Anastasiia Teslenko, Anton Konovalenko, Illya BEL, Iryna Kabysh, Iryna Vozniak, Li Biletska, Maksym Romenskyi, Mariia Horshkova, Mary Jane (Oleksandra Mykhailova), Mila Kosynska, Mykola Myronov, Natali Agrzykova, Oksana Kami, Oleksandra Viazinko, Pavlo Borshchenko, Polina Shumacher, Sergey Melnitchenko,
Vera Gailis
