Gennadii Kazakevych

The project is focused on the particular role that photography played in shaping the identities of the urban population of Ukraine as well as in what way it contributed to the processes of modernization of Ukraine. It deals with both portrait and landscape photography of the period 1850-1920 and discusses the following research questions:

- How the development of photography in Kyiv changed the ways the local population was perceived, presented and memorized;

- How professional photography provided an opportunity for women and the representatives of the lower social classes to engage with a new professional activity;

- In what ways the visual narrative of Kyiv was transformed by landscape and ethnographic photography;

- How amateur photography contributed to the social life of the city;

- How state officials constrained photography and its practice by imposing censorship and other types of restrictions.