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Gold 2023 Editorial / Conflict

Who Is This? It'S Me

  • Photographer
    Maija Bondar
  • Prize
    Gold in Editorial / Conflict

This project is about the search for identity against the background of the war. I was born in Ukraine, lived 17 years in Russia. I currently live in Finland. Who is this child in the photo? I've been asking this question for over a year now. And now I can answer like this: "Who is this? It's me, Maija, I'm 42 years old, I'm Ukrainian, and my native language is Russian. For more than a year I have been waiting for the end of the war between my homeland and the homeland of the language that I speak and think all my life".

Maija Bondar is Fine Art/Documentary photographer from Finland. Born in Ukraine in 1981. She lived in Russia for 17 years. She is currently engaged in research on national identity and internal conflicts. She graduated from the North-Western State Technical University “Economics and Management at the Enterprise”. At the moment she is a student in the Practical school Gradia, Media and visual expression Faculty (Jyväskylä, Finland), Academy of Documentary and Art Photography Fotografika (Saint Petersburg)