©Vic Bakin, Epitome Book Cover, published by Void Books

The moment you open the first page of Vic Bakin‘s Epitome, published by published by Void Books, a powerful testimonial to the consequences of war, you are faced with metaphorical wounds created by intentional darkroom techniques that are profoundly effective in conveying a somber message.  The innocent male figures that are juxtaposed with destroyed homes and villages of Ukraine foreshadow a future of darkness and despair that is both heroic and tragic knowing what we know at the moment.

©Vic Bakin, Epitome Book Cover, published by Void Books

©Vic Bakin, from Epitome, published by Void Books

As the war in Ukraine grinds on in seemingly never-ending waves of drone attacks, advances, and retreats, one tends to overlook the human factor in the daily news coverage of the Russian invasion and the valiant Ukrainian response.  Vic Bakin is a young Ukrainian self-taught photographer whose new monograph, Epitome, turns a laser focus upon a generation of young Ukrainian men who are either waiting for the fates to determine their future, fighting to defend Ukraine or who have left the country in the face of the conflict.  In either case, the result is the same…the depletion of a youthful cadre representing the future of their country to either the perils of war or an unwanted diaspora.  There is a grim tone to this dramatic depiction of young men interspersed with images of abandoned houses and scarred landscapes, the symbolic empty nests of Ukraine.

©Vic Bakin, from Epitome, published by Void Books

©Vic Bakin, from Epitome, published by Void Books

Bakin has a unique view of his darkroom as a “safe room”, a small part of a much bigger world where he can retreat from the sound of drones and rockets that disturb his daily routine and deprive him of sleep.  He withdraws into a smaller world over which he has control…the world of making prints that he can enlarge or diminish (his preference) depending upon his creative urges.  Palm sized prints are his preference as they do not intrude and can be held in one’s hand. Adding to the dramatic nature of his images is the overlay of chemical stains and an occasional fingerprint captured in the development process in Bakin’s darkroom aerie. The book is replete with Bakin’s clever use of photographic references such as stains, inverted negatives and manipulated cyanotypes to symbolize dramatic elements of the absurdity of war.

©Vic Bakin, from Epitome, published by Void Books

©Vic Bakin, from Epitome, published by Void Books

©Vic Bakin, from Epitome, published by Void Books

There is another complicating layer in this dramatic tale of devastation and loss.  Bakin’s portraits of the young men on their way to their destinies originated in his archive of portraits, some of which explored the queer communities and sub-cultures in Ukraine in the ten years prior to the war.  There is a certain irony in his use of friends and models from that archive as symbolic representations that war does not discriminate in its squandering of human life.  Furthermore, the numerous images of sunflowers in various states of rigor and decay add to the sense of desolation and not so subtle despair that pervades Epitome.  The book is a beautiful homage to young men who are drafted by war to face their manhood unsparingly.  The portraits convey an innocence that is challenged and devoured by tragic circumstance. Bakin has threaded that needle to perfection.

©Vic Bakin, from Epitome, published by Void Books

©Vic Bakin, from Epitome, published by Void Books

©Vic Bakin, from Epitome, published by Void Books

©Vic Bakin, from Epitome, published by Void Books

At the end of the book, there is a touching postscript that conveys so much about Bakin’s book and state of mind.  In one of its poetic notes, he writes:

“I collect the pictures as one would collect postcards or funny-shaped pebbles.  At times, they are something to hold on to.  Instant embodiment.  Epitome of the moment no longer there.  Some of them are mirrors.  An endless glow brings some peace…. Developer stains your smile so cold it barely keeps the silver magic alive.  Second eye contact – don’t remember the first.  Yet as pale as a dead.  A sudden burst of fire twists a pile of metal…seen this a hundred times before.  Life goes on until it’s not.”

©Vic Bakin, from Epitome, published by Void Books

©Vic Bakin, from Epitome, published by Void Books

©Vic Bakin, from Epitome, published by Void Books

©Vic Bakin, from Epitome, published by Void Books

©Vic Bakin, from Epitome, published by Void Books

©Vic Bakin, from Epitome, published by Void Books

©Vic Bakin, from Epitome, published by Void Books

©Vic Bakin, from Epitome, published by Void Books

Vic Bakin is a Ukrainian visual artist, based in Kyiv. He is the recipient of a ‘Documenting Ukraine’ grant from IWM Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. The project, Epitome, was featured in ‘Ones to Watch’ by the British Journal of Photography, and Bakin was the winner of the Art

Photography LensCulture Award in 2023 and selected for the Copenhagen Photo Festival 2024. His work has been published in The New York Times, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, and Vogue, Ukraine amongst others.

@vicbakin on Instagram

 Epitome is available online from Void Books

@photo_void on Instagram