urban herstories

Elena Subach’s works are the imaginary journey through Zenica’s urban space and it’s herstories. Using visual language specific for her art, she dived in our heroins archives, took walks using old city maps and internet resources to create her own vision of Zenica from female artist perspective. Even though because of pandemic Subach wasn’t able to visit the city in person and meet Sabiha, Meliha, Mara, lejla and Gordana she managed to create a deep relation with them and their stories.

Elena Subach – Ukrainian photographer and artist. Born in Chervonohrad, Ukraine. She works with topics of small cities, religion, mythology and identity and uses photography as a tool for playing with facts and beliefs, mixing documentary, staging, computer editing and handcrafting into her unique andemotional visual language. She obtained Master’s degree in Economics in Volyn State University (Lutsk, Ukraine). She came to photography in 2011.

Personal exhibitions 2020 — posters on walls of Hamburg, Galerie 21 im Künstlerhaus Vorwerkstift 2019 — Heroic Trip, Szara gallery (Katowice, Poland) 2019 — City of Gardens, EEP Berlin 2018 — Subach / Poliakov, The Naked Room gallery (Kyiv) 2016 — Taxidermia with Periscope group (Lviv) 2014 — Retablos de Galicia, Dzyga gallery (Lviv)

Awards & Mentions 2019 — Participant of Futures Platform 2019 — Gaude Polonia scholarship by National Centre for Culture Poland 2019 — Shortlisted to Gomma Grant 2019 — Fotofestival Lodz Grand Prix finalist 2016 — New East Photo Prize Bigmag Special Prize and grant winner.

Zenica’s landscape through the eyes of Elena Subach.

Since the start of quarantine, we realized that the topics we are researching in our project – public spaces and elderly are the most relevant and acute today. We decided to continue the project in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine and explore the status of public places and the urban environment for the elderly today during the pandemic. What does safety mean for the elderly? How has the daily routine of quarantine changed? How do people who are at risk feel and what do they really need? Our partners and urbanists from Metalab were working on the study together with the Asortymentna kimnata.

METALAB

City development laboratory that supports a socially equal, spatially comfortable, culturally rich, environmentally responsible, economically balanced city (environment).

In order to reach these goals, MetaLab aims to create a supportive environment, a field for experiments, where the social and spatial potential of the city can be developed and tested in practice.

It is a community united by interest in urban living, desire to learn and improve the urban environment, as well as a platform for communication, urban research and events. MetaLab is an urban laboratory in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, and is located at the premises of Promprylad Plant, that is currently being redeveloped as a mixed use space for community, creative industries, and culture.

The targeted audience of MetaLab is both professional communities and those who have experience in the implementation of urban projects, seek for like-minded people, and implement their ideas in Ivano-Frankivsk, as well as those who want to learn more about the city living and environment, and are interested in the actual urban processes in the world.