Weekend Portfolio: Julie Poly
From Ukrzaliznytsia book | 2017-2019
Images and Text by Julie Poly
Provincial gigolos and leopard-clad ladies, rigorous businesswomen and young soldiers. You can meet all possible (and often impossible) kinds of characters while commuting on a train in Ukraine — or in Julie Poly’s Ukrzaliznytsia project, named after the country’s one and only railroad transportation enterprise.
For a year, the artist has been making documentary and staged pictures on local trains, predominantly in Kyiv region, Eastern and Western parts of Ukraine. The project depicts certain types of Ukrainian passengers as well as stereotypes about them, with the boundaries between reality and fiction being completely erased.
From Ukrzaliznytsia book | 2017-2019
Part of Ukrzaliznytsia project was first presented as the exhibition at Ukraine’s major Kyiv-Pasazh-yrskyi Railway Station in September 2018. Photographs were displayed as backlit posters in advertising spaces located throughout the station’s main passage. This way, the project came back to the area of its genesis and directly interacted with its own protagonists. Now, the full Ukrzaliznytsia project is published as a book.
From Ukrzaliznytsia book | 2017-2019
“ I didn’t aim to show real life – it’s all an imitation of real people and familiar situations. Every scene is a grotesque one”
From Ukrzaliznytsia book | 2017-2019
“Train cars look like a primitive iron box, but inside is where all the action happens. The project depicts certain stereotypes of passengers and my personal experiences as a conductor, that I’ve gained while studying at the Ukrainian State Academy of Railway Transport in Kharkiv. In this way, every viewer can step into the inner world of the train car”, – says Julie Poly. “Some models were ‘customised’ into ‘real’ characters. I didn’t aim to show real life – it’s all an imitation of real people and familiar situations. Every scene is a grotesque.”
From Ukrzaliznytsia book | 2017-2019
Check out more of Poly’s work on her website and Instagram (@julie_poly)
Purchase Poly’s Ukrzaliznytsia photo book, art-directed by Ben Ditto (Ditto Press, London). Worldwide distribution of the book is provided by Antenne Books.
