Winner European Publishers Award For Photography 2014

KIRILL GOLOVCHENKO

Essay by Christian Caujolle

Bitter Honeydew depicts the lives of those who run roadside stalls in Ukraine – ‘tochka’, where they sell fruit according to the season and often far more. ‘Tochka’ is a general Ukrainian term for a sales point, but can sometimes also refer to prostitution. The merchants, many of them coming from Azerbaijan and Georgia mix with locals and live close to their makeshift emporiums in tents and trailers. They work and live either alone or with their families. A microcosm of very different people with a common goal: they want to make money. But Golovchenko’s images talk also about his compassion for these uprooted men and women, about the bitterness in their lives. 

Born in Odessa, Ukraine, Kirill Golovchenko studied photography and design at Darmast University in Germany, and lives between Frankfurt and Odessa. His work, which has been widely acclaimed, presents secret and undiscovered insights from Eastern Europe. Golovchenko has received several scholarships and awards, including Documentary Photography Award, European Photo Exhibition Award and Abisag Tuellmann Prize. His photographs have been exhibited internationally since 2004, including Museum Folkwang Essen, and Deichtorhallen, Hamburg. He is represented by Dymchuk Gallery in Kiev and Focus agency, Hamburg.

Christian Caujolle is one of the France’s leading curators and critics. A founder of Agence VU he has curated major festivals such as PhotoEspaña, Rencontres d’Arles and Foto Biennale Rotterdam, and his extensive writings on photography have been published worldwide.

Hardback
80 pages, 335mm x 240mm
ISBN: 978-1-907893-68-1