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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 protesters 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
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and mass-producing improvised body armor.
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The EuroMaidan protests began peacefully
at the end of 2013,
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after the president of Ukraine,
Viktor Yanukovych,
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rejected a far-reaching accord
with the European Union
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in favor of stronger ties with Russia.
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In response, tens of thousands
of dissatisfied citizens
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poured into central Kiev
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
by the barricades on Hrushevsky 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
within the mainstream media.
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What I was witnessing
was not only news, 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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Olek, Vasily and Maxim
were all ordinary men,
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with ordinary lives from ordinary towns.
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But the elaborate costumes
that they had bedecked themselves in
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were quite extraordinary.
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I say the word "costume"
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because these were not clothes
that had been issued
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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,
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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Snipers, loyal to the government,
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started firing on the civilians
and protesters 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 morgue.
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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,
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 of 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 lay
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 barricades
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to lay their tributes
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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 our 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 handbags,
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and the bunches of red carnations,
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white tulips and yellow roses
that they carried
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jarred with the blackened square
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and the 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 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
the end of violent events in Ukraine.
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But now I understand
that it is a 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 during the protests
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replaced so that traffic flows freely
through the center of the square.
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The fighters, the women
and the flowers are gone.
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A huge billboard depicting geese
flying over a wheat field
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covers the burned-out shell
of the 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. :)