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When I arrived in Kiev,
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on the first of February this year,
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Independence Square
was under siege,
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surrounded by police
loyal to the government.
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The protestors who
occupied Maidan,
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as the square's known,
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prepared for battle.
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Stockpiling homemade weapons and
mass-producing improvised body armor.
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The EuroMaidan protests
began peacefully
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at the end of 2013
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after the president of Ukraine,
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Viktor Yanukoych,
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rejected a far-reaching accord
with the European Union
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in favor with stronger
ties with Russia.
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In response, tens of thousands
of dissatisfied citizens
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poured into central Kiev
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to demonstrate against
this allegiance.
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As the months passed,
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confrontations between police
and civilians intensified.
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I set up a makeshift
portrait studio
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by the barricades by (name) street.
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There, I photographed
the fighters against a black curtain.
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A curtain that obscured the highly
seductive and visual backdrop
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of fire, ice and smoke.
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In order to tell the individual
human stories here,
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I felt that I needed to
remove the dramatic visuals
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that had become so
familiar and repetitive
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within the mainstream media.
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What I was witnessing
was not only news,
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but also history.
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With this realization,
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I was free from the
photojournalistic conventions
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of the newspaper and the magazine.
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(names of people) were all ordinary men,
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with ordinary lives from ordinary towns.
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But the elaborate customs that they
had bedecked themselves in
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were quite extraordinary
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I say the word "costume" because
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these were not clothes that had been
issued or coordinated by anyone.
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They were improvised uniforms
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made up of decommissioned
military equipment
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irregular combat fatigues and trophies
taken from the police.
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I became interested in the way they
were choosing to represent themselves,
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this outward expression of masculinity,
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the ideal of the warrior.
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I worked slowly, using
an analog film camera
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with a manual focusing loop
and a handheld light meter.
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The process is old fashioned.
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It gives me time to speak
with each person
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and to look at them in silence
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while they look back at me.
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Rising tensions culminated
in the worst day of violence
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on the 20th of February,
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which became known as
Bloody Thursday.
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Snippers, loyal to the government,
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started firing on the civilians and
protestors in Institutskaya street.
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Many were killed in a
very short space of time.
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The reception of the Hotel Ukraina
became a makeshift morge.
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There were lines of
bodies laid in the street.
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And there was blood
all over the pavements.
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The following day,
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President Yanukovych fled Ukraine.
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In all, three months of protests
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resulted in more than 120 confirmed dead.
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and many more missing.
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History unfolded quickly,
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but celebration remained
elusive in Maidan.
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As the days passed in
Kiev's central square,
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streams of armed fighters
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were joined by tens and
thousands of ordinary people
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filling the streets in an act
of collective mourning.
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Many were women who
often carried flowers
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that they had brought to law as
marks of respect for the dead.
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They came day after day
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and they covered the square
with millions of flowers.
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Sadness enveloped Maidan
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It was quiet and I could
hear the birds singing.
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I hadn't heard that before.
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I stopped women as they
approached the barracades
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to lay their tributes and
asked to make their picture.
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Most women cried when I
photographed them.
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On the first day, my fixer
Emine and I cried
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with almost every woman
who visited out studio.
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There had been such a noticeable
absence of women
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up until that point.
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And the color of their pastel coats,
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their shiny hand bags,
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and the bunches of red carnations,
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white tulips and yellow roses
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that they carried jarred with the blackened square
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and they blackened men who were encamped there
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It is clear to me that these
two sets of pictures
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don't make much sense
without the other
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They are about men and women
and the way we are
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not the way we look, but the
way we are
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They speak about different
gender roles in conflict
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not only in Maidan and not only
in Ukraine
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Men fight most wars,
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and women mourn them.
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If the men showed the ideal
of the warrior,
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then the women showed the
implications of such violence.
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When I made these pictures,
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I believed that I was documenting
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the end of violent events in Ukraine
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But now I understand that it is
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the record of the beginning
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Today, the death toll stands around 3,000
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while hundreds of thousands
have been displaced.
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I was in Ukraine again six weeks ago,
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In Maidan, the barricades have
been dismantled.
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And the paving stones which
we used as weapons
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during the protests
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have been replaced so that traffic
flows freely through the center of the square
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The fighters, the flowers and the
women are gone.
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A huge billboard depicting geese flying
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over a wheat field covers
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the burnt out shell of the
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trade union's building
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and proclaims,
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"Glory to Ukraine.
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Glory to heroes."
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Thank you.
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(Applause).
Mari Arimitsu
I am wondering if "manual focusing loop" at 2:20-2:24 should be "manual focusing loupe" -- however that is an insignificant part in the talk. :)