On 2 June 2023, with the support of the Ukraine Schweiz Bern Association, a photo exhibition by the photographer Yulia Wimmerlin entitled ‘(Un)Cornered’ took place in Bern.
The idea of a corner is not new. But Irving Penn, an American photographer, one of the most influential photographers of the twentieth century, who photographed influential people in a corner, had a slightly different goal. Yulia Vimmerlin used this idea because of her own feelings.
‘I was also in a dead end. You're in a corner when you don't know where to go, you can't move. And if Irving Penn photographed a Hollywood star in a corner in the early 20th century, I think this is a story with a psychotherapeutic effect. For me, this idea was transformed into circumstances. And it was a philosophical approach. After all, the corner is in all the photos, but it is not visible everywhere,’ says Yulia.
Implementing the project was not easy. Some potential participants refused to participate - not everyone wanted to admit that they were in a dead end. Those who agreed opened their hearts and homes. But it was not easy either. The refugees mostly lived in guest families, and it was unclear how the Swiss would react to the photo project. However, the desire was so strong that the right words were found. ‘We were looking for a corner in the room where my characters lived. We often had to move the furniture. And then I watched people changing into the same clothes they had worn the last time they left their home. It was a special feeling,’ Yulia recalls.
The photographer specifically made sure that the women did not see when she pressed the camera's trigger.
Yulia put the camera on a tripod and did it through her laptop. Then silence... Then memories and .... tears appeared on her face. The participant was crying. Yulia was crying.
40 people - 40 photos. All with the hope of returning to the life they had before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This project is incredibly sensual, extremely emotional. For the women who considered those clothes almost a talisman, and when they put them on, they plunged back into their memories.
Yulia's idea in organising the photo exhibition was to ‘mix’... the cantons of Switzerland with the regions of Ukraine. As a result, the photographer travelled to almost all the Swiss cantons and returned with photographs of women from almost all Ukrainian regions.
The photo above shows Kateryna Debkaliuk with her mother and grandmother. They live in Basel. They moved to Switzerland from the small town of Slavutych near Chernobyl. Kateryna has a son, William. When they were forced to flee Ukraine, he was 7. It was his question ‘Are we all going to die?’ Katia recalled at the time of the filming. ‘William's father, my ex-husband, took us to the border. A curfew had already been introduced and we were on the road in a small town in western Ukraine. The air raid warning system was not yet in place, so people were informed about the danger from the air in various ways, including ringing church bells. And at that moment, when we heard the bells ringing from everywhere, we were sitting in the car and were afraid to move. It was then that Willie asked about death. I answered: ‘I'm with you, so everything will be fine!’
‘Kateryna's story is a success story!’ Yulia is convinced. The woman came to Switzerland with a job in the IT sector from Ukraine. However, her Ukrainian salary did not allow her to support her family in Switzerland. So Kateryna decided it was time for a change! She sent out up to a dozen CVs every day, ‘catching’ every new vacancy. And success overtook her. Kateryna works in Lugano, and her well-paid job allows her to support her family. Katerina commutes to Lugano from Basel and back almost every day. In the comfortable railway transport, she often thinks about what motivated her at that difficult moment. And somehow she realised: it was the awareness of the transience of time! Not wasting time, achieving your dreams and desires, not stopping and not despairing - this is what will help everyone. It is not easy, but it is possible.
The other photo shows Lyudmila Bogun, a journalist from Chernihiv region. In recent years, she worked in Slavutych. She was the editor-in-chief of the local newspaper. But Lyudmyla is especially proud of her YouTube vlog about the Chornobyl disaster. For the audience of almost a hundred thousand people, the journalist provides only verified data, information from primary sources and eyewitnesses.
...That's why she's with a camera in one of the photos. ‘When we evacuated from Chernihiv, I took a video camera and discs with valuable information and unique video footage,’ Liudmyla recalls. - ‘On the way to Switzerland, I filmed people at refugee centres and recorded their interviews. However, I could not work with the material I had collected. In the photo that will be shown at the photo exhibition, I am a person who could not sleep at night. A person who dreamed of explosions and rockets every night. A person who thought every moment about her eldest son who remained in Ukraine and her husband who went to the front to defend his homeland.’
Recently, Liudmyla's husband Kostiantyn was killed in the battle for Ukraine's independence. The Association ‘Ukraine Switzerland Bern’ offers sincere condolences to the family of the hero.
In the photo, Lyudmyla is wearing the clothes she left Ukraine in. She says she did not take new clothes, nor coloured ones. But one is not judged by their clothes, the journalist adds. And she recalls a story about a woman in an expensive fur coat she saw in one of the refugee centres. ‘A child and a fur coat are all that's left of her past life. And the stranger, as she later told Lyudmyla, put on the coat only because it was the closest one to the house that had been hit by the rocket and had already started to burn.
For Liudmyla, telling her story means giving a part of herself for the sake of Ukraine's victory. Telling the stories of others means fulfilling a professional duty while getting rid of the feeling of guilt.
The exhibition was a huge success among visitors.
