Pretty Ghetto

Pretty Ghetto is an initiation album about searching for yourself in a big city, about the desire to stand out pushed to its absolute limit, about a fleeting moment of carelessness at the beginning of the 2010s — a reality now lost forever.

The photographic series of the same name, Pretty Ghetto, presents images of brightly dressed people seemingly contrasted against the massive buildings and structures of Kharkiv. The author emphasizes their otherness, marginality, and protest against perpetual busyness and the monotony of routine. These surreal, carefully staged photographs raise timeless questions about the nature of maximalist rebellion — is it sincerity or performance? — about the gaze of the outsider, the perspective beyond the camera lens that alters self-expression and whether it is even possible to stand out among people who are trying to do the same.

The second series “38” shows Polina’s growth as a photographer through experimentation and an ongoing search for method. Yaroslava Diuna — the model featured in many of the images from the first series and Polina’s close friend — exchanges roles with Polina herself as they recreate photographs taken in the past.