Fighters and mourners of the Ukrainian revolution

When I arrived in Kiev,

on the first of February this year,

Independence Square was
under siege,

surrounded by police
loyal to the government.

The protestors who
occupied Maidan,

as the square's known,

prepared for battle.

Stockpiling homemade weapons and
mass-producing improvised body armor.

The EuroMaidan protests
began peacefully

at the end of 2013

after the president of Ukraine,

Viktor Yanukoych,

rejected a far-reaching accord

with the European Union

in favor with stronger
ties with Russia.

In response, tens of thousands
of dissatisfied citizens

poured into central Kiev

to demonstrate against this allegiance.

As the months passed,

confrontations between police
and civilians intensified.

I set up a makeshift
portrait studio

by the barricades by (name) street

There, I photographed
the fighters against a black curtain

A curtain that obscured the highly
seductive and visual backdrop

of fire, ice and smoke.

In order to tell the individual
human stories here,

I felt that I needed to
remove the dramatic visuals

that had become so
familiar and repetitive

within the mainstream media.

What I was witnessing was
not only news,

but also history.

With this realization,

I was free from the
photojournalistic conventions

of the newspaper and the magazine.

(names of people) were all ordinary men,

with ordinary lives from ordinary towns.

But the elaborate customs that they
had bedecked themselves in

were quite extraordinary

I say the word "costume" because

these were not clothes that had been
issued or coordinated by anyone

they were improvised uniforms

made up of decommissioned military equipment

irregular combat fatigues and trophies
taken from the police

I became interested in the way
they were choosing to represent themselves

This outward expression of masculinity.

The ideal of the warrior.

I worked slowly, using an analog film camera

with a manual focusing loop, and
a handheld light meter

the process is old fashioned,

it gives me time to speak with
each person

and to look at them in silence

while they look back at me.

Rising tensions culminated
in the worst day of violence

on the 20th of February,

which became known as Bloody Thursday.

Snippers, loyal to the government,

started firing on the civilians in (name) street

Many were killed in a very
short space of time.

The reception of the Hotel Ukraina
became a makeshift mourge.

There were lines of bodies laid
in the street.

And there was blood
all over the pavements.

The following day,

President Yanukovych fled Ukraine.

In all, three months of protests

resulted in more than 120 confirmed dead.

and many more missing.

History unfolded quickly,

but celebration remained elusive in Maidan.

As the days passed in Kiev's central square,

streams of armed fighters

were joined by tens and thousands of
ordinary people

filling the streets in an act
of collective mourning.

Many were women who
often carried flowers

that they had brought to law as marks of
respect for the dead

They came day after day

and they covered the square

with millions of flowers

Sadness enveloped Maidan

It was quiet and I could hear the
birds singing

I hadn't heard that before,

I stopped women as they
approached the barracades

to lay their tributes

and asked to make their picture.

Most women cried when I
photographed them.

On the first day, my fixer (name) and I cried

with almost every woman who visited out studio.

There had been such a noticeable
absence of women

up until that point.

And the color of their pastel coats,

their shiny hand bags,

and the bunches of red carnations,

white tulips and yellow roses

that they carried jarred with the blackened square

and they blackened men who were encamped there

It is clear to me that these
two sets of pictures

don't make much sense
without the other

They are about men and women
and the way we are

not the way we look, but the
way we are

They speak about different
gender roles in conflict

not only in Maidan and not only
in Ukraine

Men fight most wars,

and women mourn them.

If the men showed the ideal
of the warrior,

then the women showed the
implications of such violence.

When I made these pictures,

I believed that I was documenting

the end of violent events in Ukraine

But now I understand that it is

the record of the beginning

Today, the death toll stands around 3,000

while hundreds of thousands
have been displaced.

I was in Ukraine again six weeks ago,

In Maidan, the barricades have
been dismantled.

And the paving stones which
we used as weapons

during the protests

have been replaced so that traffic
flows freely through the center of the square

The fighters, the flowers and the
women are gone.

A huge billboard depicting geese flying

over a wheat field covers

the burnt out shell of the

trade union's building

and proclaims,

"Glory to Ukraine.

Glory to heroes."

Thank you.

(Applause).