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.
我在今年二月一日抵達基輔時, 獨立廣場被佔領, 由對政府效忠的警察包圍。 佔領獨立廣場的抗議者 都已備戰, 儲備自製武器 和大量臨時製造的盔甲。 烏克蘭親歐盟示威 在 2013 年底和平展開, 就在烏克蘭總統 維克多‧亞努科維奇 拒絕與歐盟簽署影響極大的協議, 以強化和俄羅斯的關係之後。 為了回應這項做法,上萬名不滿的民眾 湧進基輔市中心表達抗議。
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.
經過幾個月, 警民的對峙加深。 我臨時在赫雪司基街的 護欄邊搭了攝影棚, 以黑簾為背景拍攝示威者, 黑簾遮蔽了視覺性強 且引人注意的背景: 槍火、白雪與黑煙。 為了述說每個人的故事, 我覺得有必要移除 這些引人注目的背景, 那些在主流媒體裡不停重覆 人們熟悉的景象。 我所目睹的不只是新聞,還有歷史。 有了這項體認, 我便不受傳統攝影新聞拘束, 有別於其他報紙雜誌。 歐雷格、瓦西里和邁可森都是平凡人, 住在平凡的小鎮過著平凡的生活。 但他們穿上的精緻服裝 非常特別。 我用服裝這個詞 是因為這些衣服並不是 有人負責協調或統一發放的, 而是臨時的制服, 用退役的軍用裝備改製, 配上淘汰的軍備 跟向警方取得的戰利品。 我對於他們選擇 呈現的樣子很感興趣, 他們這種非常具男子氣概的表現 就是戰士的樣子。
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.
我慢慢地用底片相機拍攝, 用手動對焦與手持式曝光錶。 這種拍攝方式過時了, 但讓我有時間跟每個人對話, 在他們回望我的同時, 安靜地與他們對看。
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.
雙方對峙的緊張情勢 在充滿暴力的二月二十日這天爆發, 也是後來為人所知的血腥星期四。 效忠政府的狙擊手 開始在學院街上對著平民和抗議者開槍, 短時間內造成很多人死亡。 烏克蘭飯店的大廳變成臨時停屍間。 街上滿是一排排屍體; 行道上充滿斑斑血跡。 隔天,亞努科維奇總統逃離烏克蘭。 簡言之,三個月的抗爭 導致超過 120 人死亡, 許多人失蹤。 事件很快就結束, 但獨立廣場上絲毫不見欣喜之情。
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.
隨著日子過去, 基輔的中央廣場除了武裝鬥士, 更有成千上萬名平民參與, 湧上街頭集體哀悼逝者。 很多女性帶著鮮花 放在地上向逝者致敬。 他們每天上街頭, 在廣場內擺滿了上百萬朵花。 廣場被悲傷掩沒, 安靜到我能聽見鳥鳴, 這是前所未有的景象。
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.
我叫住那些走到柵欄前 要向逝者致意的人, 問她們是否願意讓我拍照。 我拍照時,很多女性都哭了。 第一天,我和助理艾密內 都跟每位來拍照的女人一起哭。 女性顯然缺席了許久, 直到這一刻才現身。 她們淺色的大衣、 鮮艷的手提包, 手上一束束的紅色康乃馨、 白色鬱金香與黃色玫瑰花 和滿是黑色的廣場 以及被困在此的陰鬱男子 顯得格格不入。
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.
我很清楚這兩組照片 單獨看來不太合理。 照片上的是男人與女人本身的體現, 不是外表,而是本質。 照片述說著不同性別在衝突中的角色, 不只在獨立廣場,不只在烏克蘭而已。 男人披掛上陣;女人獻花哀悼。 如果說男人展現了勇士的樣貌, 那女人正是這種暴力的體現。
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).
拍攝這些照片時, 我相信我在記錄 烏克蘭暴力事件的結束。 但現在我相信這是記錄一種開始。 今天,死亡人數達到約三千人, 還有數十萬人流離失所。 我六週前又回到烏克蘭。 獨立廣場的護欄已經拆卸完畢, 抗議時用來當武器的 鋪路石也都不見了, 所以現在廣場的交通又恢復正常。 抗議者、女人和鮮花都不見了。 一片巨大廣告牆上畫的是 一隻鵝飛過麥田, 遮蓋了工會大樓外牆的斑駁痕跡, 上頭寫著: 「烏克蘭萬歲; 英雄萬歲。」 謝謝。 (掌聲)