Ukrainian Self-Portraits began as a series of portraits created from encounters at the Polish-Ukrainian border over 19th-20th March 2022. The portraits are the result of a collaboration between myself and the subject. They are self-portraits because the images are taken by the subject using a remote shutter release. I adopted this approach to enable the return of rightful agency, in that moment and that space, to individuals whose agency was being eroded by external forces.

The project has expanded with further photographs taken in late 2022 and throughout 2023, as I continue to meet with the initial subjects (and new subjects) across Europe and Ukraine to re-photograph and assess together the impact of the Russian invasion on their lives.

As the project develops and we move further away from that first encounter, my original conviction has been vindicated: the people we meet in these portraits are not ‘refugees’ or ‘victims’. They are ordinary people, yanked out of their ordinary lives and away from their ordinary aspirations. But in that ordinariness lies beauty - the commonplace beauty that occurs when people connect with one another.