«PreMortem» — one of the projects selected within the third annual micrograntsupport program for Ukrainian documentary makers, implemented by UAPP. The aimof the program is to support authors who continue to document the experience ofa country resisting aggression and to create visual evidence of events thatdefine the history of contemporary Ukraine. The program is implemented with thesupport of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Ukraine.
Pre Mortem — “before death” — is a statebetween a joke and a consequence. The project is built on the contrast betweenironic inscriptions on munitions and the reality of the damage that followsthem.
For a soldier, humor and death stand side by side. One helps not to break andto carry out the task; the other reminds of the price of every decision. PreMortem is a view from inside the war, where irony becomes a form of survival,and a joke — the last human act before the strike.
Semen Kuchvara is a Ukrainian photographer from Lviv. He works withthemes of corporeality, youth, freedom, and sexuality, often photographingpeople close to him — friends who are not professional models — in order topreserve a sense of truthfulness and unperformed presence. His work has beenpublished in Musashi Magazine, Resuer Magazine, Argentik Magazine, Sticks andStones; he participated in the exhibition “Revisions” (YermilovCenter,Kharkiv). Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, he joined the ArmedForces of Ukraine; he is currently an active-duty sergeant and continues towork with photography, documenting the experience of war from within. Instagram author
