When I arrived in Kiev, on February 1 this year, Independence Square was under siege, surrounded by police loyal to the government. The protesters who occupied Maidan, as the square is known, prepared for battle, stockpiling homemade weapons and mass-producing improvised body armor. The Euromaidan protests began peacefully at the end of 2013, after the president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, rejected a far-reaching accord with the European Union in favor of stronger ties with Russia. In response, tens of thousands of dissatisfied citizens poured into central Kiev to demonstrate against this allegiance.
当我在今年二月一日到达基辅时, 独立广场已被攻陷, 被忠于政府的警察包围。 抗议群众攻占独立广场, 准备战斗, 他们备有自制的武器, 并大批量生产临时防弹衣。 在乌克兰总统维克托·亚努科维奇 拒绝与欧盟长远同盟, 而强化与俄罗斯的关系之后, 亲欧派于2013年底开始和平示威, 成千上万的民众心怀不满, 涌入基辅市中心示威,反对政府对俄罗斯的忠诚。
As the months passed, confrontations between police and civilians intensified. I set up a makeshift portrait studio by the barricades on Hrushevsky Street. There, I photographed the fighters against a black curtain, a curtain that obscured the highly seductive and visual backdrop of fire, ice and smoke. In order to tell the individual human stories here, I felt that I needed to remove the dramatic visuals that had become so familiar and repetitive within the mainstream media. What I was witnessing was not only news, but also history. With this realization, I was free from the photojournalistic conventions of the newspaper and the magazine. Oleg, Vasiliy and Maxim were all ordinary men, with ordinary lives from ordinary towns. But the elaborate costumes that they had bedecked themselves in were quite extraordinary. I say the word "costume" because these were not clothes that had been issued or coordinated by anyone. They were improvised uniforms made up of decommissioned military equipment, irregular combat fatigues and trophies taken from the police. I became interested in the way they were choosing to represent themselves, this outward expression of masculinity, the ideal of the warrior.
几个月的时间内, 人民与警察的冲突愈演愈烈。 我在Hrushevsky街的路障旁 搭建了一个临时摄影工作室, 我搭起一个黑色幕布,拍下了一名又一名战士。 这个黑色幕布遮住了喧嚣与宁静, 掩盖了硝烟、冰霜与战火。 为了讲述这里每个人的故事, 我觉得我需要抹去那些 充斥在主流媒体上的纷杂的画面。 眼前的一切对我而言不只是新闻, 更是历史。 当我认识到这一点后, 我不再拘束于传统报刊杂志摄影记者的条条框框。 Oleg, Vasiliy 和 Maxim 都曾是普通男人, 都曾住在普通的城镇,过着普通人的生活。 但他们精心穿戴的装束 非常特别。 我用「装束」这个词 是因为这些衣服都不是统一发放的, 只是临时装束, 配有淘汰的军械, 还有从警察那里获得的战利品和行色各异的迷彩服。 吸引我的是他们表现自己的方式, 展现男性气魄, 散发斗士光辉。
I worked slowly, using an analog film camera with a manual focusing loop and a handheld light meter. The process is old-fashioned. It gives me time to speak with each person and to look at them, in silence, while they look back at me.
我并不急于拍下这一幅幅画面, 我架起一台模拟胶片相机, 手动调焦, 手动调节环境光度, 这种拍摄方式早已过时, 却让我有了更多时间与每个人对话, 我看着他们,他们也看着我,相对无言。
Rising tensions culminated in the worst day of violence on February 20, which became known as Bloody Thursday. Snipers, loyal to the government, started firing on the civilians and protesters on Institutskaya Street. Many were killed in a very short space of time. The reception of the Hotel Ukraine became a makeshift morgue. There were lines of bodies laid in the street. And there was blood all over the pavements. The following day, President Yanukovych fled Ukraine. In all, three months of protests resulted in more than 120 confirmed dead and many more missing. History unfolded quickly, but celebration remained elusive in Maidan.
紧张的局势在二月二十日集中爆发, 这一天被称为「血腥星期四」。 忠于政府的狙击手 将炮火对准Institutskaya街上的民众和示威者, 片刻间死伤无数。 乌克兰旅馆成了临时停尸间, 成排的尸体铺在街上, 鲜血染红了土地。 第二天,总统亚努科维奇逃离乌克兰。 三个月的游行示威以来, 共有120多人死亡, 更大数量的人失踪。 历史的车轮滚滚向前, 但黎明的曙光遥遥无期。
As the days passed in Kiev's central square, streams of armed fighters were joined by tens of thousands of ordinary people, filling the streets in an act of collective mourning. Many were women who often carried flowers that they had brought to lay as marks of respect for the dead. They came day after day and they covered the square with millions of flowers. Sadness enveloped Maidan. It was quiet and I could hear the birds singing. I hadn't heard that before.
悲惨过后,在基辅的中央广场, 成千上万的普通民众跟随武装战士, 涌向街道,集体向逝者哀悼。 许多妇女手持鲜花, 祭奠逝去的生命, 日复一日, 广场上布满了花朵, 哀伤笼罩着独立广场, 异常寂静,鸟鸣不绝于耳, 这是以前不曾听到过的。
I stopped women as they approached the barricades to lay their tributes and asked to make their picture. Most women cried when I photographed them. On the first day, my fixer, Emine, and I cried with almost every woman who visited our studio. There had been such a noticeable absence of women up until that point. And the color of their pastel coats, their shiny handbags, and the bunches of red carnations, white tulips and yellow roses that they carried jarred with the blackened square and the blackened men who were encamped there.
我拦下那些前往街垒祭奠亡者的妇女们, 询问能否拍摄她们, 在我的镜头前,大多妇女泪流不止。 在第一天拍摄她们时, 我的摄影助理Emine和我 一同与几乎每一位来到摄影棚的妇女哭泣。 在那之前,我们很久没拍摄过女性了。 鲜亮的外套, 亮丽的手袋, 红色的康乃馨, 白色的郁金香, 黄色的玫瑰花, 斑斓的色彩与黑沉的广场、 与长眠于黑暗的逝者交织在一起。
It is clear to me that these two sets of pictures don't make much sense without the other. They are about men and women and the way we are -- not the way we look, but the way we are. They speak about different gender roles in conflict, not only in Maidan, and not only in Ukraine. Men fight most wars and women mourn them. If the men showed the ideal of the warrior, then the women showed the implications of such violence.
我强烈地感受到, 正是鲜明的对比赋予这两套影像意义, 这种意义通过男女的对比而体现, 也通过我们自身—— 不是看起来的样子 —— 而是通过自身而体现, 这两套影像展现了男女各自鲜明的角色, 不只是在独立广场,也不只是在乌克兰: 男人浴血奋战,女人为之哀悼。 如果说,男人象征勇士, 女人则象征战争背后的哀伤。
When I made these pictures, I believed that I was documenting the end of violent events in Ukraine. But now I understand that it is a record of the beginning. Today, the death toll stands around 3,000, while hundreds of thousands have been displaced. I was in Ukraine again six weeks ago. In Maidan, the barricades have been dismantled, and the paving stones which were used as weapons during the protests replaced, so that traffic flows freely through the center of the square. The fighters, the women and the flowers are gone. A huge billboard depicting geese flying over a wheat field covers the burned-out shell of the trade union's building and proclaims, "Glory to Ukraine. Glory to heroes." Thank you. (Applause).
当我拍下这些相片的时候, 我以为我记录下的是乌克兰暴力事件的尾声, 现在我才知道,我记录下的是起点。 至今,死亡人数统计约为三千人, 成千上万的人流离失所。 六周前我又去了乌克兰, 在独立广场,路障已经清除了, 在暴乱时被用作武器的铺路石已被取代, 广场中心的交通得以畅通。 战士,妇女和花都不见了。 一幅巨大的画着一群大雁飞过麦田的布告板 悬挂于工会大厦外墙,用以遮掩炮火的痕迹。 布告板上写着, 「乌克兰光荣, 英雄们光荣。」 谢谢各位。 (掌声)