THE POLES 

‘The Poles’  is a study of self-harm as an addictive behavior, those unreality and pain, the bridge between which can be called the desire — conscious or not — to harm yourself. You can call ‘The Poles’ art therapy, where I tried to go into free abstraction and comprehend the power of self-harm over the person’s identity. 

Self-harming behavior was accompanying me for about ten years and has become part of my personality. Over the years, my body had become a map marked by the scars. As I was looking at them, it became more and more clear to me that these actions are comparable to the dependent and uncontrolled. It seemed to me for a while, that me and self-harm, like friends, were living together inside our common consciousness. By recognizing the unhealthiness of this friend or myself, I was trying to find the origins of such behavior.

Language: Russian
Size: 148×210
40 pages + 5 inserts
Paperback, hand-bound and assembled
Circulation 20 copies
Self-published

Participant of the photo book festivals “Nizina Fest” in St. Petersburg, “Zherdela” in Rostov-on-Don, “Zin-Zin” in Khabarovsk, “Razvorot” in  Voronezh.
Featured in the collection of Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art “Garage” Library.