Image by Igor Chekachkov Published in the Portrait issue of BJP
Speaking to editor Diane Smyth, Max recollects his upbringing in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, and how he first came to the UK in 2017 to intern at Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool. In 2023 he was appointed curator of the same institution, and in 2024 he curated the Ukrainian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale with his wife and fellow curator, Viktoria Bavykina. Find his Any Answers below.
My father was a photographer. He shot technical photography in a factory, and landscapes and street scenes as a hobby. At home, we had piles of Soviet Photography magazines. The images were mostly Soviet- amateur style; I didn’t like them, but I liked the idea of photography.
After studying mining engineering, I started to work as a press photographer for the local newspapers. Later I discovered some of the other ways photography can function. Thanks to the internet, I found Magnum Photos and realised documentary photography could be very different. Then I discovered the Düsseldorf School, Wolfgang Tillmans and Jeff Wall, and realised photography didn’t have to be documentary.
I wanted to work on this other side, so I moved to Bologna to study arts management. I thought maybe I could organise exhibitions as a manager or creative producer. Then I came across Open Eye. I had never seen this socially engaged approach before and I found it interesting. So I interned there for four months, supported by Erasmus+.
When I returned to Ukraine I worked at Mystetskyi Arsenal [the National Art and Culture Museum Complex] as a manager then as a curator. In 2021 I moved back to the UK with my wife to study history of photography at University of London. We planned to stay for a year but, when the full-scale invasion happened, decided to remain longer. We thought, how can we help Ukrainian culture when we are not there? So in 2022 we launched a platform for Ukrainian photographies, to make it more visible to international curators and art historians.
Open Eye has a strong identity around working with communities and socially engaged photography. I wanted to learn more about that, contribute to it, but also add new voices. There are many Ukrainians in Liverpool now, and Poles and Lithuanians. As in other UK cities, there is a big migrant community. But this conversation about migration and identity, your position in society, can be relevant to everyone.
The riots in Liverpool [in August 2024] were surprising to me, because I don’t feel the UK is closed or anti-foreigner. Open Eye wasn’t damaged and the staff were safe; we closed the gallery just before the situation escalated outside. But our community exhibition partner, Spellow Library Hub, which works with migrants, was set on fire.
What happened didn’t make us think we need to change what we are doing. It made us think we need to keep on doing it. If we can offer personal stories of individuals or communities, perhaps it can help others see them as people, not as a category or something potentially harmful.
We are working on a show about war photography with Magnum Photos, which should open in March 2025. Unfortunately conflict photography is relevant again, and maybe it’s time to reconsider it. Social media has changed the way war photography is circulated and, because platforms don’t always have an editor, have changed the view offered.
In 2024, Viktoria and I won the open call to curate the Ukrainian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. We wanted to tell stories about Ukrainian society, and talk about ideas and themes of otherness through personal experiences of war, emigration, and social integration.
The metaphor we landed on was camouflage nets. Since 2014 [when Russia invaded Crimea and east Ukraine], groups gather to weave these nets; people unite and work together, partly through a utilitarian need but also to meet, and have a sense of purpose. In the press you find terrifying images of war and poverty and blood. We wanted to offer a different perspective, things which are not only about being a victim.
Images by Igor Chekachkov, Rob Battersby
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