When I moved to the UK, the project “Two Rooms” stayed behind in the apartment in Lviv where it was born. In this new space I could not continue the story in the same way. What remained was the need to keep speaking about my family, about presence, about the everyday touch of time that quietly shapes memory.

Out of this grew a new series with the working title “Kitchen Studio.” The kitchen is the heart of our home, the place where all of us cross paths. It is where smells turn into memories and where silence between words speaks louder than dialogue. In this room the routine pauses and intimacy takes shape. Every dinner becomes a rehearsal, every lamp becomes a spotlight, every pause becomes a pose.

Unlike the instinctive images of Two Rooms, these photographs are staged portraits. My family members appear to play themselves, yet in the light of the camera they become something more than characters. The kitchen table turns into a stage, the plates become props, the shadows from the lamp fall like curtains. In these images there is both a sense of solemnity, almost like icons, and the fragility of daily life.

With Kitchen Studio I am trying to rediscover our shared space in a foreign country. If Two Rooms was a diary of childhood, this is a family portrait unfolding in several acts. The kitchen becomes a metaphor of home, a place that moves with us from one address to another, always keeping its essence as the place that holds us together.

Ongoing 2022-2025