Fotograf Zone – Ksenia Ivanova

Between the Trees, 2019–2024

The Russian occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia has turned parts of Georgia into occupied territories. Photographer Ksenia Ivanova explores this theme in her six-year project, which treats borders as living organisms. Barbed-wire fences cut through fields, yards, and family properties, turning homes into border zones and interfering with the daily lives of people who find themselves on the dividing line.

Ivanova documents a situation in which dependency is intertwined with a lack of freedom—people in separatist regions live in isolation, unable to travel freely or decide their own future, while their survival depends largely on Russian support and military presence.

Abkhazia, once a popular resort, now seems like a shadow of its Soviet past and a destination for Russian tourists, while the conflict itself remains unresolved.

The project includes photographs and video footage mapping both the official structures of power and control and the everyday forms of survival and adaptation. Ivanova follows the lives of people on both sides of the border, as well as broader political events, such as mass protests against growing Russian influence in Georgia.

Between the Trees shows that change does not necessarily mean liberation or growth. In this case, it is rather imposed, cyclical, and often silent. The artist raises the question of how conflict is inscribed into the landscape, memory, and core of the community, and how photography and film can not only document but also co-create processes of remembering and imagining the future in a space marked by occupation.

Co-funded by the Creative Europe program of the European Union, FUTURES is a platform to increase the capacity, mobility and visibility of it's selected artists and to bridge the gap between emerging and established artists.

METAMORPHOSIS
October 4–12, 2025
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Venue · Holešovice Market, Hall 13
Bubenské nábř. 306, 170 00, Prague 7 Holešovice
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Opening Hours · 10:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.

Ksenia Ivanova

is a Russian-born documentary photographer based in Berlin, Germany. She works with long-term storytelling, focusing on themes of trauma and memory. Her practice reflects on how personal and collective histories are recorded and narrated.

#49 Talk Together

This issue explores language – its forms, possibilities, and limits. We look at how we communicate in the digital space, how the language of artificial intelligence changes our notions of creativity, and how visual images can replace words. You will discover why language is never neutral and how it shapes identity, creates inequalities, and opens paths to liberation. The issue features a reflection by bell hooks, the artistic practice of Eszter Magyar, projects documenting the Roma community in Brno, and visual essays by Claudia Larcher and Tabor Robak. The magazine presents language as a tool of communication, power, and resistance and invites you to reflect on what it truly means to talk to one another today.