Another Sense of Safety
2022-2026

Another Sense of Safety explores how the body registers rupture and how a temporary loss of subjectivity transforms into a new form of presence. This work does not propose a return to safety, but instead considers a condition of adaptation in which anxiety becomes embedded in the line of life.

At the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, residents of the village of Stari Petrivtsi placed mannequins in the forest as decoys to divert the attention of the enemy. I used to spend time there often, but after the invasion the forest became inaccessible. Once the territory was demined, I returned to the forest and encountered them.

Scattered among the trees, the mannequins existed between presence and absence — white, clothed, unnaturally still.

The mannequins were placed across most of the forest, at a distance from one another. Remaining alone, they were not completely separated. Their presence in the forest created a dispersed field in which connection did not disappear, but only changed its form — becoming less visible, fragile, yet still perceptible.

A space once associated with protection transformed into a field of heightened perception. The forest no longer protected — it signaled.

These artificial bodies pointed to a state in which subjectivity recedes — a condition akin to depersonalization, where the psyche distances itself in order to endure an excess of reality. The artificial did not merely enter the natural environment, but disrupted its internal order. 

I returned repeatedly, observing gradual changes: moisture darkening the plastic, wind bending and exposing surfaces, snow concealing forms. Over time, the forest began to absorb them, dissolving their separateness, documenting a gradual shift — from disruption to integration.

After a long absence, I returned again. I had once known precisely where each figure was located, but the landscape had changed, concealing them beneath leaves and branches. The forest, once familiar, now appeared estranged, almost unrecognizable without them. Eventually, I found the remains of three. The encounter carried an unexpected intimacy — as if returning to something once known. Although the forest was already considered safe, the body retained the imprint of the initial fear. A sense of threat did not disappear.

Within this process, perception is recalibrated. The threat does not vanish — it redistributes. Anxiety ceases to be a peak event and becomes a layer, integrated into the structure of experience, much like the mannequins, which gradually ceased to disturb and became part of the forest.

Images photographed in 2022–2026 in Stari Petrivtsi, Kyiv region, Ukraine. Digitally reworked in 2026.