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a literary journal published by the Black Earth Institute dedicated to re-forging the links between art and spirit, earth and society

Liliia Kucher


Landscape with reeds #3

reeds with feathery tufts blowing in the wind against a gray sky


Landscape with reeds #1

photo of a marshy landscape with reeds in the foreground and a gray sky


Brother’s hands

a young man's hands cupped over a floral bedspread


Abstract landscape with trees

blurred photo of trees with many branches against a gray sky


Father and his bees

a man's dirty hands frame a mass of honeybees on a red checkered cloth

Images from “Why is it blue?”, 2021, a reflection on family in post-Soviet Ukraine. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, my father left the army, where he served the military police as a prison guard. He became a priest and later a beekeeper. The connection to an agricultural rather than a military life was his means to find peace. These pictures explore personal relationships, the memory of the past, and the encounter with nature as longing and self-replenishment.

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Liliia Kucher is a Ukrainian photographer. Her practice consists of conventional and non-conventional approaches to documentary, focusing on the representation of memories, connections to places, and personal histories. Liliia graduated with distinction from the MA in photojournalism and documentary photography at the University of the Arts London. She has been selected as one of 10 nominees for Aesthetica’s the Next Generation Award (2021), shortlisted for Bartur Photo Award (2021), a finalist of Friend-Ship Photography Award (2019) and a finalist of This-Ability Photography Award (2018). Liliia’s photography is influenced by the way she has come to respond to the memories of her experience of traumatic events in her early life. Some of the themes recurring in her work are memory, loss, family, longing, fantasy, and the healing power of nature. Driving her practice is an underlying need to share stories and emotions, to reach out and realise we are not alone.


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