The Project was shortlisted by Belfast Photo Festival in 2024
Belfast Photo Festival
Short List
No words can have as much impact as visual images, especially when they are strange and absurd. They make you stop, they attract attention. And they begin to speak to the viewer's imagination.
The goal of this project is a serious conversation, even a scream about a societal problem. A newborn baby needs to be with the mother 24 hours a day in the first year of life. This significantly affects the proper physical and psychological development, the formation of attachment, the feeling of security in the surrounding world. A baby who is sent to daycare at an early age, sometimes for the whole day until late at night, loses the sense of security, the feeling of closeness with family adults, trust in the world.
The goal of this project is a serious conversation, even a scream about a societal problem. A newborn baby needs to be with the mother 24 hours a day in the first year of life. This significantly affects the proper physical and psychological development, the formation of attachment, the feeling of security in the surrounding world. A baby who is sent to daycare at an early age, sometimes for the whole day until late at night, loses the sense of security, the feeling of closeness with family adults, trust in the world.
The state, without providing to mothers financial support, put them before a choice - either a healthy and happy motherhood or a career and independence. Heroine of this project made a choice in favor of her children, depriving herself of the opportunity for career growth and putting herself in a vulnerable, dependent position on her husband. And my project is about how she lost.
She did not build a career, she raised children. But the children grew up and left to live their own lives. And the husband lost interest in her and went to live his own life. And now she is left without means of subsistence - it's too big of a gap to continue her career, she has to start from scratch, but in her age it is very difficult. And she feels like a complete failure and that her life has been lived in vain.
If she'd had paid parental leave for the first year of her child's life, she could have combined motherhood and career, not sacrificing anything, not making a choice that would affect her entire life.
She did not build a career, she raised children. But the children grew up and left to live their own lives. And the husband lost interest in her and went to live his own life. And now she is left without means of subsistence - it's too big of a gap to continue her career, she has to start from scratch, but in her age it is very difficult. And she feels like a complete failure and that her life has been lived in vain.
If she'd had paid parental leave for the first year of her child's life, she could have combined motherhood and career, not sacrificing anything, not making a choice that would affect her entire life.
My project shows how a smart, healthy, educated, strong woman can be thrown out of life, like garbage. She lies on the steps of beautiful houses, like a discarded old doll that has been played with, its owner has grown up and the doll has been thrown away, in a rich, thriving town where nobody cares about her.
This project speaks on behalf of all women who are forced to make this choice. And those who have made their choice in favor of children risk ending up in the place of my heroine (that's why she has no face - hordes of mothers all over the world could be in her place).
My message is that there shouldn't be such a choice. Every woman has the right to be a mother without sacrificing career opportunities, without diminishing her chances of success. Every mother has the right to financial independence without compromising the health of her children.
This project speaks on behalf of all women who are forced to make this choice. And those who have made their choice in favor of children risk ending up in the place of my heroine (that's why she has no face - hordes of mothers all over the world could be in her place).
My message is that there shouldn't be such a choice. Every woman has the right to be a mother without sacrificing career opportunities, without diminishing her chances of success. Every mother has the right to financial independence without compromising the health of her children.
