Description
Lviv–God’s Will comes from the name of a bus route that connects the city of Lviv with Bozha Volya, a small village lost deep in the forests along Ukraine’s border with the European Union — the promised land of wealth and eternal joy. The bus departs from the main gate of an old Lviv cemetery and travels west. In Ukrainian ‘Bozha Volya’ translates literally to mean ‘God’s will’, but also shares origin with the word ‘bozhevillia’, meaning madness.
A naive, visual subculture involving public space has become widespread throughout Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union and expansion of globalization. Makeshift sculptural scenes appear in the environment through accidental interactions and random interventions by unrelated people — products of indiscriminate behaviour, mistakes, destruction, and natural vegetation running wild. Ultimately, nobody is responsible for this happenstance. It is all God’s will.
The scenes and structures shown in this book are as found in reality, and have not been interfered with other than to be isolated from their surroundings using colourful backgrounds. Neither are they confined to any geographical boundary; they reflect a state of mind.
Design by Tiffany Jones + Viacheslav Poliakov
The Author
Based in Lviv, Viacheslav Poliakov documents public spaces in small Ukrainian towns. He focuses on telling the visual stories of objects and structures, and their random creation ‘without a conscious author’. Born in Kherson in 1986, he completed an MA in Fine Arts from Kherson State University (2007) working in abstract ink drawings. He now works as a motion and graphic designer, combining his career with personal photography projects. He is a 2018 recipient of the Gaude Polonia Scholarship offered by the National Centre for Culture in Poland. A 2017 Foam Talent Finalist, Viacheslav’s work has also been shortlisted and presented in Circulations Festival (2018), Krakow Photomonth Showoff (2017), Photofestiwal Lodz Grand Prix (2017), Prix Levallois (2017), and the Vienna Photobook Festival Award (2017). This body of work has featured in BJP and Photoworks, and exhibited in Austria, France, Georgia, Germany, Netherlands, Poland and Ukraine.
www.via-poliakov.com
Reviews + Press
“[Poliakov] pieces together a view of contemporary Ukraine through the small and often overlooked details of the everyday – one that points to the many frictions that have emerged from its recent history.” – Sophie Wright in BJP
See more:
LUR magazine review by Enrique Lista (Spanish)
Les Nouveaux Riches Interview
It’s Nice That
Feature in BJP, by Sophie Wright
Vogue (Online, Ukraine)
Interview with Photoworks
Feature in Aint-Bad
Interview with YWYW
Fotograf magazine, issue 30
Special Notes
* Selected for Athens Photo Festival 2019 Photobook Exhibition at Benaki Museum 13 June – 28 July 2019
* SHORTLISTED Ukrainian Photobook of the Year
* #1 RECOMMENDED PHOTOBOOK from UNSEEN Amsterdam Book Market 2018, selected by Richard Sporleder of Café Lehmitz, Cologne
* IACK’s Choice Photobooks of 2018
Events + Exhibitions in 2018/19
– RIGA PHOTOMONTH, Exhibition of photobook, May 2019 (Opening week 7-13 May)
KIEV PHOTOBOOK FESTIVAL, book presented by IST Publishing, 9 February 2019 at IZONE Creative Community
– GALLERY OPENING EXHIBITION + KIEV, UKRAINE BOOK LAUNCH – 14 Dec – 21 Jan 2019. The Naked Room Gallery and Bookshop opened with a double exhibition of Lviv – God’s Will and On the Edge by Olena Subach. Book launch hosted by IST Publishing
– BOOK LAUNCH + SIGNING at Unseen Book Market 2018 (Amsterdam), 22 September
– ATHENS PHOTO FESTIVAL 2018 EXHIBITION 6 June – 29 July – details
– CIRCULATIONS FESTIVAL 2018, PARIS, 17 March – 6 May – details
– FOAM TALENT TRAVELING EXHIBITION – details
Lviv–God’s Will is held in the following collections:
AGO Edward P. Taylor Library & Archives (Toronto, CA)
The British Library (UK)
Central Institute for Art History Library (Munich, DE)
École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie (Arles, FR)
National Library of Scotland (Edinburgh, UK)
Bodleian Libraries University of Oxford (UK)
Cambridge University Library (UK)
Hellenic Centre for Photography (Athens, GR)
National Library of Wales
Oxford University (UK)
Library of Trinity College Dublin (IE)
Saxon State Library – Dresden State and University Library (DE)