1/ Oxana Chorna. A BM-21 Grad multiple launch rocket system fires a salvo from a firing position. Bahatyr, Donetsk Oblast. January 2025. 23rd Separate Mechanised Brigade, Ukraine Oxana Chorna. Raising the Ukrainian flag in Avdiivka. 53rd Separate Mechanised Brigade named after Prince Volodymyr Monomakh. Avdiivka, Ukraine Oxana Chorna. Fighters of the reconnaissance company of the 23rd Separate Mechanised Brigade, Ukraine Oxana Chorna. Sniper with the call sign Whiskey. 53rd Separate Mechanised Brigade named after Prince Volodymyr Monomakh. Avdiivka, Ukraine Oxana Chorna. Tank firing exercises, 2024. Training ground of the 23rd Separate Mechanised Brigade, Ukraine

Oksana Chorna

/ BIO
Oxana Chorna, born in 1980 in Almaty, Kazakhstan, is a Ukrainian documentary photographer, writer, researcher and active-duty officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. She currently serves as Head of the Communications Unit of the 23rd Separate Mechanised Brigade.
Chorna holds a PhD in Economics and the academic title of Associate Professor, as well as a Master’s degree in Journalism and a Master’s degree in Audiovisual Arts and Production at Kyiv University of Culture.
Her recent solo exhibitions include Those Who Fight for Tomorrow at the Museum-Studio of Photographic Art in Khmelnytskyi; Pro100 Heroes at the Museum of the Contemporary Russian-Ukrainian War in Dnipro; and The 23rd Separate Mechanised Brigade at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Her work has also been presented in group exhibitions in Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia and the United Kingdom.Chorna is the author of Call Sign Cassandra: Summer 2015 and the documentary photo book Journal of Combat Operations. Her distinctions include a Special Award, Gold and Silver Medals, and the Best Author Award at LifePressPhoto 2025, as well as FIAP Blue Ribbons at international photographic exhibitions. Her practice focuses on war, human dignity, historical memory and the everyday lives of Ukrainian soldiers.

/ ARTIST STATEMENT
My artistic practice emerges at the intersection of documentary photography, personal experience of war and an exploration of how human dignity and empathy persist under extreme circumstances. For the past several years, I have been working as a military photographer with the Ukrainian army, documenting the lives and combat operations of military units on Ukraine's eastern front. This experience not only shapes the subject matter of my work, but also defines my perspective as an artist: I work with a reality that unfolds in proximity, within an environment of constant danger, loss and, at the same time, extraordinary resilience. 
For me, photography is a way of preserving evidence of time. War destroys spaces, lives and memory, yet images have the power to hold what might otherwise be lost or forgotten. In my work, I aim to show not only the fact of war itself, but its human dimension: the relationships between soldiers, moments of exhaustion, humour, trust, anticipation, everyday routines and brief pauses between battles. 
My approach combines documentary precision with a visual sensitivity to composition, light and atmosphere. I work as a reporter, yet at the same time I seek to create images that carry a symbolic dimension and exist not only as documents but also as artistic statements. Portraits of soldiers play a central role in my practice, allowing viewers to see beyond the uniform and encounter a person with their own character, story and inner strength.

/ IN RESIDENCE
During the residency, I will focus on developing a project that combines documentary photography, storytelling and public engagement to share the lived experience of the war in Ukraine with European audiences. My main goal during the residency is to create a series of exhibitions and public presentations based on my long-term photographic work with Ukrainian soldiers, particularly the project that resulted in the photo album Journal of Combat Operations (Zhurnal Boyovykh Diy).