While working on this project, Taras Bychko traveled throughout Ukraine and tried to show the viewer the time that seemed to have stopped in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
Mostly, these places are the legacy of the Soviet regime, which seems to have taken root on a subconscious level and continues its life,
despite the economic, cultural and social changes around it.
"Out of Time" is a project about the "past" that should be erased by the present. All photos were taken in 2018-2020.
The photo project "Out of Time" began to be filmed in Drohobych (a city of regional importance in the Lviv region, Ukraine).
I was passing by a hair salon and noticed that it hadn't been affected by any changes and it seemed to be frozen in time. I could see the same interior in my childhood. Perhaps the desire to shoot a photo project was at the level of the subconscious, and in Drohobych she simply found the right picture. I won't say that the idea for the project arose immediately after this shot, but attention began to focus on similar artifacts.
Later, in Stryi (a city located on the left bank of the Stryi River in the Lviv region of western Ukraine, 65 km south of Lviv.) it was possible to take a photo similar in mood. Diptychs emerged from photographs, in which the atmosphere of the past creates their native markers of time - for example, cars or old signs on the wall.
Such attributes now constantly accompany me: wherever I go, I notice them everywhere. I am often accused of nostalgia for the Soviet Union, behind the photos there are things from the eighties and nineties. Of course, viewers can find details in the photo that remind them of the past and evoke a sentimental mood. However, I have no longing: I was a child and don't remember the life of that time. Spectators ask me why I don't photograph artifacts from the 1930s or 1940s. It seems to me that the eighties successfully "ate" everything that came before them. Such series of works about the beginning of the twenty-first century are probably photographs of the future.
My photos are rather a memory of the past that hasn't yet been erased by the present. A photo project about time, which seems to have frozen and is in harmony with the surrounding reality. Pictures for the project are being sought in Lviv, as well as in small towns in western Ukraine.
I liked shooting in Drohobych most of all, where I went several times. This city seems to have remained in the past seventies and eighties. I don't allow myself to take production shots - it is important for me to preserve the naturalness of the situation.
After a photo is taken, a conversation starts: people ask me about the photo project and in return tell me about themselves. Heard a story about a hair salon that has been operating forty years without interruptions or major renovations, as well as many personal stories. Residents of small towns sometimes reproach me for not taking pictures of, for example, new cafes or houses, but for photographing things that are not at all attractive at first glance. However, I am interested in showing this parallel reality that we don't notice, but it exists here and now, next to us. I don't have a goal to capture these places too beautifully or, on the contrary, unattractive - I just want to preserve them in photos
