I Hold

The project I Hold was born from personal experience. After long hours of shooting and editing photos at the computer, I often feel pain in my back. In response, I instinctively tense it even more, pulling my arms as far behind me as possible. That peak of pain is a strange threshold — a moment balanced between intense pain and long-awaited relief.

In July 2025, I traveled to Kyiv — a city that continues to live in defiance of war. During those days, I distinctly felt a tension that is invisible yet palpable. It had accumulated in my friends, acquaintances, in the very air of the city. It wasn’t just psychological or emotional fatigue — it was literally stored in the body. In the backs. It was the memory of constant anxiety, fear, and responsibility.

To me, this is what today’s female reality in Kyiv feels like. Women are holding on and are holding their families together, coping with daily routines, plans, fears — the entire fabric of everyday life. And they do it through their bodies. Through their backs. Through their skins. Their tension is pushed to the limit. But within that tension, there is hope. Hope for long-awaited relief.

I photographed 30 women from Kyiv, aged 10 to 80, capturing macro photos of moments of maximum bodily tension — a state between pain and hope, between holding on and letting go. During the shoot, each woman endured this peak of pain for a fraction of a second. And I couldn’t stop thinking — how much longer will they have to live on this edge?