Why Should We Have A Closer Look At Military Mobile Snapshots?
2026
[...] Numerous professional photographers have turned their lenses toward the war and its consequences, producing photographs that circulate widely on social media, appear in the news, and are exhibited in galleries and museums. Alongside this professional imagery, however, exists a massive yet often hidden and overlooked body of amateur snapshots taken by soldiers themselves. These snaps are stored in private photo galleries, shared on social media and sent to close ones through personal messaging apps. But what is remarkable about these images? [...]
Written for and published in
Ukrainian. Photographies
2023
[...] I make my usual order — cheese pasta with shrimps. Through the old wooden window, the sun fills the room with cold winter light. “Kyiv Waltz” plays in the background, and two guys in their twenties are sitting at the table nearby. Their voices are low. They talk about escaping the country and avoiding being drafted for the war. Suddenly, the air raid siren, coming from the outside, starts roaring around the city and interrupts their conversation. I pay and leave the place. No tip this time. [...]
Written for and published in
Solomiya no. 2
2022
[...] I remember how every day in March, I sat in the garden next to my house and drank tea. It was clear and sunny. The endless and calm blueness of the sky was distracted by the single trail of a warplane, flying earlier in the morning. The garden, which was slowly awakening from the winter hibernation, bloomed with new vitality and gradually began to add more fresh and green colors. I remember how simultaneously the thunder-like sounds of battles, coming from the North of Kyiv, were getting closer day by day. [...]
Written for and published in
Solomiya no. 1
2025
With the aim of finding a way to restore soldier’s sbjectivity and engage them in creating their own narratives of the war, the project is testing the methods of mobile anthropology and photovoice with a soldier known by the callsign Starman.
Realized for and published in
Solomiya no. 5
2024
[...] While Russia continues its war, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men have joined the army, and anyone over the age of 27, with rare exeptions, can be mobilized at any time. A state of war requires limitations and hardships. Bodies, which come across as male, are subordinated to the war and its politics. [...]
Realized for and published in
Solomiya no. 3
Magazin für Alltagskultur
2023
[...] The DPR military gathered a total of 30,000 civilians to film an elaborate propaganda video in which Alexander Zakharchenko, then leader of the DPR, speaks to them “Look at our brave reservists,” said the message. Hryhorii immediately fled the DPR towards Kramatorsk. But the war did not leave him alone there either. In the spring of 2022, his neighbor’s apartment was hit by a rocket that missed him by just 30 meters. [...]
Realized in collaboration with Sebastian Wells for
Solomiya no. 2
2022
[...] I wrote to a friend of mine, telling him to remember me. It was my last message to him for a while, since my internet connection stopped working. We heard machine guns and the walls began to shake. [...]
Realized in collaboration with Sebastian Wells for
Solomiya no. 1
2022
Realized in collaboration with Sebastian Wells for
Vsevolod Kazarin (he/him) is a Kyiv-based researcher, photographer, and publisher.
His practice combines photography, writing, visual ethnography and experimental humanities, through which he explores the practices and phenomena of everyday life shaped by war, shifts in power relations, and social challenges.
Recently, his research has focused on the sociocultural practices underlying everyday mobile photography on the front lines.
In 2022, he co-founded Solomiya print magazine, which has since evolved into a broader platform encompassing publishing, research, and curatorial practices. Operating between Kyiv, Berlin, and other cities, the Solomiya art collective focuses on underrepresented discourses, organizing public programs and exhibitions across the continent.
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B.A. in Photography
Book Fairs
2026
Kyiv Art Book Fair
2025
Indiecon
Hamburg
2023
Group Exhibition,
23 Young People Photographed in Kyiv, Portraits Hellerau Photography Award Finalists Exhibition,
Museum of Science and Technology,
Dresden
2023
Group Exhibition,
Solomiya no. 1,
Galerie Springer,
Berlin
2022
Group Exhibition,
Solomiya no. 1,
Feldfünf Projekträume,
Berlin
2022
2024
Gold, Art Directors Club Europe
2024
German Peace Prize for Photography,
Osnabrück
2023
Portraits Hellerau Photography Award,
Dresden
2023
Gold, Art Directors Club Germany
2023
Bronze, Art Directors Club Europe
2023
“Solomiya magazine on publishing and war”
2025
WePresent:
“Soлomiya The Ukrainian magazine helping artists to reckon with life at war”
2025
Kitchen Conversations, podcast:
“From Berlin to Kyiv: A Magazine Journey — with Sebastian Wells”
2025
Stack Magazines:
“Solomiya contemplates the end”
2024
Guardian:
“‘We created our own weapon’: the anti-invasion magazines defying Putin in Ukraine”
2023
Stack Magazines, podcast:
“War in Ukraine, as seen by Solomiya magazine”
2023