This body of work reaffirms my interest in the connection between people’s lives and photography. Its development has been a consequence of recent events in our society.

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It started as a result of collaboration with associations that provide shelter for Belarusian children affected by radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. I captured their daily lives between 2013 and 2018, creating a body of work that combined the motivation I need as an author, with the goal of helping these associations find foster families.

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Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic prevented the associations from continuing their activity in 2020 and 2021, bringing to a halt the work that they had been carrying out for decades. The year 2022 was supposed to mark a return to fostering, with my photographs playing a key role in the process. We published the work in newspaper format, intended to be used by the associations in their search for new foster families. Sadly, the publication could not fulfil its purpose: this time it was the Russian invasion of Ukraine what prevented the Belarusian children from leaving their country.

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It never crossed my mind while photographing the protagonists of this story that a war in Europe could separate us again, that bloc politics would once again distance citizens.

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It is time for the photographs to bring together those who have been left on the other side.