Originally from Kyiv and now living in Portugal, the Ukrainian artist Spasi Sohrani started a photographic project three years ago in collaboration with her parents in which she inverts the usual terms of the dressing-up game. “I started designing these costumes with found objects and material, inspired by the costumes that they themselves used to dress me up in when I was little. That’s why they are not smiling. They are like those children whose mother puts them in front of the Christmas tree dressed in special clothes to take a photo for the family album. While the mother spends her time looking for the best angle, the girl looks at the camera with a frown because she is bored and she is uncomfortable dressed like this. She just wants the happy photo session to end once and for all.”

For Sohrani, who began her career as an advertising photographer of objects, this series is a reinterpretation, from the adult perspective, of the memories of parents and children. Separated by war and with few occasions to meet, the project has become a channel to return to what each remembers from that common past.

Born in Kiev, Ukraine in 1986, Tanya Spasi Sohrani moved to Portugal after the invasion of her country. She creates conceptual photographs for which she makes her own costumes and masks. She creates her own world, with vivid characters such as angels from a small village, parents dressed in children’s costumes or a collection of pretty monsters. Longing for the Ukrainian creative community, she has been organising HoolyCamp in Kiev since 2020, an event for artists with no rules and restrictions. Her series Family was the winning project of the PhMuseum 2024 Photography Grant in collaboration with Getxophoto.

Spasi Sohrani (Ukraine, 1986)
Family

2024 Edition
PhMuseum Photography Grant winner
Outdoor installation
Venue: Market façade
Collaborators: PhMuseum and Traders of the Algorta Market