“We create landscapes, we photograph nature. But what if trees, rivers, and plants could be more involved in creating the final portrait of themselves?”.
Using experimental techniques, I involve nature in co-creation. I have soaked rolls of film into the water of rivers, swamps, lakes, seas, and quarries in various places in Ukraine and Germany, adding leaves, twigs, and sand to the water. I shot these films in the same places where the water came from. I left some prints in the soil and swamps in the area where I photographed them, and a few months later, I scanned the results”.
Yuliana Paranko is a photographer and artist from Ukraine. She obtained an MA in Journalism from Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Ukraine in 2013. She has lived and worked in Zhytomyr and Kyiv, Ukraine, and currently resides in Berlin, Germany. In 2019, she completed a Portrait Photography course at Bird in Flight School and graduated from the ‘Art Consciousness’ course at MYPH school in 2023. Yuliana is a member of the Ukrainian Women Photographers Organization (UWPO) and the MYPH collective.
Yuliana was a participant with Filmswap Collective at the 2nd Kyiv Photo Book International Festival in 2019 and participated in EXP. 20 International Festival on Experimental Photography (Barcelona, Spain) in 2020. Her works were published in the Mykolaiv Young Photography book, listed as one of the best books of 2022 by LensCulture. She created photo illustrations for the art-book ‘Rusla Zapyast’ by Olha Olhova, a finalist in the Best Book Design Contest 2021 at the Book Arsenal festival.
Her works have been featured in Zaborona, ARTDOC Photography magazine, Bird in Flight Magazine, Polysème Magazine, Politychna Krytyka, Divoche media, and National Geographic (online). She received an Honorable Mention at the Analog Sparks 2023 competition. Her works were exhibited at the [PEP] Photographic Explorations exhibition at Photo Brussels Festival 2024, the online group exhibition ‘Film friends’ at Analog Forever Magazine, and the ‘Healing nature’ and ‘Creative photography’ online exhibitions at ARTDOC Photography magazine.
Additionally, her work was featured in the ‘Environmental Alterations,’ ‘Contrasts,’ and ‘Abstractions’ international group exhibitions by LoosenArt in Rome, Italy. Her work was also included in the online group exhibitions ‘I Used To Travel’ at Analog Forever Magazine and ‘Home Museum’ at LagosPhoto Festival. Since its foundation in 2020, Yuliana has been a member of the Ukrainian Women Photographers Organization. She participated in several group exhibitions, including ‘In the Name of Freedom 2.0’ in Potsdam, Germany, ‘In the Name of Freedom’ in Berlin, Germany, and a group exhibition in Kharkiv, Ukraine, organized by the Ukrainian Women Photographers Organization. She also exhibited her work online at Photo Kyiv.
Yuliana participated in several MYPH group exhibitions both online and offline, including the ‘Shared Body’ exhibition at Ukraine House in Copenhagen, Denmark, the ‘Crossing the Line’ exhibition at Norfolk Arts Center in Norfolk, NE, USA, a group exhibition at the Motanka festival in Berlin, Germany, and the MYPH exhibition and book presentation at PHOXXI in Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany. Additionally, she participated in an online MYPH student exhibition at Kantart gallery.
Yuliana is interested in the relationship between nature and humans, nature’s role in art, and human and women’s rights. She primarily works with analogue techniques but occasionally uses digital methods and experimental techniques in film photography, including instax and cameraless photography.
Instagram: @yuliana_film
