Where is the way out
It is the collab work of AL_Rum and Masha Kozhdan. AL: I immediately formed an image as soon as I saw Masha's photo for the first time. This photo shows on the one hand the power and tension of the upper part of the figure and the instability of the lower one. I tried to enhance this impression by adding graphic elements to this image. Masha said it was not a photo, but a series of photos and they had a story. I was interested to hear this, but now I prefer to trust my feelings rather than my thoughts. So we agreed that she would tell this story a bit later. When I finished our collaboration work, she told me the story.
MASHA: In the photo is a girl who became a victim and suffered from the dictatorial regime of the long-term incumbent president of Belarus during the events that happened in 2020.
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In 2020 in Belarus an unprecedented wave of anti-government protests swept the country, people peacefully gathered to demonstrate their disapproval of the official not fair election results.
The state responded to these protests with extreme violence. Belarussians were detained, injured, arrested, disappeared without a trace and even killed.
People were fined and arrested for nothing, for example, for white and red [the colors of the alternative Belarus flag, symbol of the protest movement] socks, stickers on the laptop, for posting on social media etc.
Even nowadays many Belarussians are still in jail, being prosecuted and punished. And Belarusians are very intimidated. Many of them had to leave the country to stay safe and alive.
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So the girl in the photo experienced the horrific incident, she was arrested and held for 15 days for expressing her political opposition as a journalist.
This was a real nightmare for her, after the jail she was afraid to come out from home, connect to people, her mental and physical condition was a difficult one. She had to leave the country.
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This photoshoot was held right before her leaving the country. And It was a part of the healing process from the big trauma she went through. The photoshoot was an attempt to connect and trust the world again, to show herself with all the feelings. U can see not a glamorous supermodel's pose, but quite a closed and intense one.
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It's an interesting collaboration because Al didn't know the story behind this photo and when he saw it he immediately knew what he wanted to add to the photo. He added the scary hands right above the girl and made some other touches to the whole photo that totally matched the story behind the photo and enhanced the meaning a lot.
