Ukrainian-born artist and photographer Elena Volkova concludes her residency at SomoS with an artist talk centered on her ongoing project The Me Before the War No Longer Exists: Ukrainian Portraits.

Since 2023, Volkova has been working with Ukrainian women displaced by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, developing portraits through long-term encounters and conversation. Combining digital photography with historical processes such as wet plate collodion, she approaches portraiture as a collaborative process in which the women she photographs help shape how they are represented.

Volkova describes the project as focusing on women "navigating life in transition, shifting between countries, identities, and visions of themselves." Her own experience is closely connected to the project: she left Ukraine in 1994 and recognizes echoes of departure, uncertainty, and rebuilding a sense of home in the stories of the women she meets.

The talk will address the evolution of Ukrainian Portraits, her use of slow historical photographic techniques, the role of collaboration and shared authorship in portraiture, and the process of bringing several years of photographs and personal histories into book form.

The conversation will be moderated by Paulus Fugers, SomoS director and curator, followed by an audience discussion.

Doors open at 6 p.m. Admission free