In the 2023 winter edition of the online exhibition, Gandy Gallery presents a selection of works from the photo series Apricots of Donbas (ongoing, 2023) and Diary (2015-2019) by Polina Davydenko.

Polina Davydenko works mostly with the medium of photography overlapping with the media of video, audio and text. The key theme of her work is narrative and its various forms. She focuses on humananimal relationships and cultural stereotypes related to the issue. These become the starting point for playing out other contexts, which the author visually sensitively connects into one disturbing message.
Polina was born in Ukraine, but she lives in Czech Republic since her childhood. She completed study at the lvars Gravlejs' Photography Studio at the FFA BUT in Brno. She has furthered her education at KASK in Gent, FAMU in Prague and at the FFA's Studio Environment. In 2022 she was
nominated for Futures Photography 

Apricots of Donbas (ongoing, 2023)

Serie of images observing representation of so called Donbas — stigmatized by the Russian invasion in 2014 and colonized by Russian imperialism for almost two hundred years. Colonization made an impact on the whole region – how the landscape looks like (hot summer steppe with coal heaps), how people work there (most of the residents work as miners in an ecologically unsustainable mining industry), what language people of Donbas speak (90% of Donetsk and Luhansk region speak Russian) and omnipresent disillusion. Small mining towns built in the 50s and 60s today have problems with water shortages, summer heat, and air pollution. But no systemic change is coming yet. Only privatizing of coal mines,
ongoing war, and climate change.

Apricots of Donbas is a book of poems by Ukrainian author Lyuba Yakimchuk. She describes the borders between Ukraine and Russia as defined by the apricot trees - planted all over eastern Ukraine but not growing on the Russian side.

Diary (2015-2019)

The photographic selection of pictures depicts an absurd composition from the Czech countryside. Carefully composed documentary pictures are in opposition to first-sight coincidental situations. The series describes our alienation hidden in colorful products.