B. 1991, Ukraine

Through photography, Sergey Melnitchenko explores and highlights the tensions inherent in modern society. With his protagonists often turned away from the camera, hiding their faces, or featured without their names, Melnitchenko underscores how these tensions have become universal, penetrating cultures and borders. Hence, in his photo series ‘Polaroids from China’ (2015), Melnitchenko foreground everyday stories and narratives from the modern Chinese megacity, putting focus on the disinterestedness with which people pass each other by in the modern metropolis. In another series, ‘Superheroes’, he highlights the same tensions in his native Ukraine, by taking pictures of pedestrians wearing masks of American superheroes, calling into attention the relationship between the individual lives and stories of all humans, and the coldness with which we treat each other in public spaces.