Invisible visible
Photographer Natalia Sharomova captures the essence of moments through her lens. Women stories and portraits. Women who went through the war trauma. Who were under russion occupation in there own houses in Ukraine, who lost everything, who left there husbands to save the children. I document the emotional journey of refuge women.
My storytelling of refugee women in photos and words is very personal to me, rooted in my own experience and cultural identity. I combine photography with journalism to reveal important records of this period of time. To document the history of the UK.
It is very important for me to tell the stories of women. As the impact of war on women is often hidden. While men are mostly seen on the front line, women carry another kind of frontline inside their homes, families, and bodies. They leave their country with children, care for the elderly, and rebuild daily life from nothing in a foreign place. Many of them live with fear, loss, and separation, yet they still create, nurture, and hold families together. By showing their faces and voices, I want to make visible the strength and vulnerability of women whose lives the war has tried to silence. I am one of these women. With my background in photography and documentary work and with my two children, I take it as my mission to be a voice for women and document the times we live in.
What we chase is to find us in this process of change and fight and make it visible. This project is not a project these are our real life stories. Asking ourself: "Who am I in all I am going through?" It is the most exciting and most difficult thing - to discover yourself as you don't know where this walk will lead you.
We do this walk together as a community. We rebuild ourself and help each other not to fall down. We accept each other as we are. Freedom to be yourself in strength and vulnerability. We go through losses, disappointments but we are able to inspire other not to break. This project is about strength in weakness. When losing everything, you find yourself in something new.
Every photo is complemented by a life story. But also the photo by itself - is a story. Seeing yourself in context with the environment you are in. It's more a metaphorical way of looking on life and on photo.
The real love of it is immersing yourself in whatever you are doing. And it takes you away from the invisible to a new reality. It helps and teaches us to focus on the moment, it's about being present - to feel the heartbeat, breathing.
We are. We stand. Stand together.
Invisible Visible is an exhibition of collaborative, narrative portrait photographs by Natalia Sharomova and the Ukrainian Art Group as well as artworks by the group created during the year-long mentorship project Putting Ourselves in the Picture - Part 2. Co-curated by Natalia Sharomova and Fast Forward team Anna Fox and Corinne Whitehouse, the exhibition will feature a film by celebrated artist Ori Gersht.
Anna Fox, Director of Fast Forward says: “Putting Ourselves in the Picture has been an exciting project extending the skills and knowledge of a fabulously creative group of Ukrainian women artists based in Farnham. Led by the inspiring photographer Natalia Sharomova alongside Fast Forward and Creative Response these women have produced an extraordinary range of visually stunning artworks. They have used an incredible range of photographic approaches to tell us a series of powerful stories about their lives in their own voices.”
Speaking about the Invisible Visible photo series Natalia Sharomova says: "We invite you to step into stories of Ukrainian women, most of whom came to live in the UK as refugees when Russia fully invaded Ukraine. The stories are told through image and text. Born from collaboration, they reclaim the women’s voices and identities. Each photograph is a quiet defiance, a declaration of presence."
Putting Ourselves In The Picture – Part 2: Engaging with Industry is a Fast Forward project in collaboration with five pioneering organisations: National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh, Women for Refugee Women and Autograph in London, Creative Response in Farnham, and Work Show Grow online.
