Viacheslav Poliakov. Lviv—God’s Will

This story is about those of us for whom life just happens. It takes place when the connection between cause and consequence unravels.

I am documenting the naive visual subculture of the public space, which has become widespread throughout Ukraine since the fall of the Soviet Union. For me, a central peculiarity of the culture is the absence of a conscious author. The objects of the city environment are formed fortuitously, by means of disconnected interaction of unrelated people, by modifications, destructions, wild vegetation. As if they came into being by themselves. Everything is god’s will.

All the objects collected in the project were photographed without any interference on my part. However, in most photographs, I removed the background to isolate the subjects from the visual chaos that usually surrounds them.

“Lviv—Bozha Volya” (literally God’s Will) is a bus route, connecting the city with a small village lost in the forests on the very border with the EU.

“Bozha Volya” in Ukrainian derives from the same root word as madness.

The title has nothing to do with geography.

Viacheslav Poliakov (1986, Ukraine) obtained a master’s degree in fine arts from Kherson State University (2007); he mostly works on abstract ink drawings. Having graduated from the university, he started working as a motion and graphic designer. He made his first steps as a media artist as a member of the Totem Art community at Kherson. His interest in photography emerged in 2012, and he has taken part in several group art projects and exhibitions in Ukraine, Poland, Georgia, Germany, and the Netherlands. He is now based in Lviv.