Sometimes life gives you a gift. I discovered, by chance, that it was in the village where the photos were taken that my great-grandfather was born around 1860...
The goal was to create this series using a 4x5 inch large format camera and Polaroid to highlight the timeless and centuries-old character of the deep Hutsul culture (inhabitants of a part of the Ukrainian Carpathians). That’s when the idea grew to return to the place, collect old, very worn hemp shirts that were about to be discarded.
It was then that the idea came to return there to get some old, very worn traditional hemp shirts, ready to be thrown away.
Next, thanks to the expertise of Frédéric Gironde from Ruscombe Paper Mill, a French paper artisan in Margaux (33), paper sheets were made from this fabric. Before the paper pulp dried, an embroidered element (embroided by locals) was placed in the margin.
After scanning and enlarging the Polaroids, and in reference to the year of my ancestor's birth, these images were printed using the gum bichromate technique, in four-color process. This technique was invented around 1855 by the French chemical engineer Alphonse-Louis Poitevin.
Finally, with the help of Oleksander Prymak, a master of gum bichromate living in Kyiv, the prints were made with four hands.
It was then that the idea came to return there to get some old, very worn traditional hemp shirts, ready to be thrown away.
Next, thanks to the expertise of Frédéric Gironde from Ruscombe Paper Mill, a French paper artisan in Margaux (33), paper sheets were made from this fabric. Before the paper pulp dried, an embroidered element (embroided by locals) was placed in the margin.
After scanning and enlarging the Polaroids, and in reference to the year of my ancestor's birth, these images were printed using the gum bichromate technique, in four-color process. This technique was invented around 1855 by the French chemical engineer Alphonse-Louis Poitevin.
Finally, with the help of Oleksander Prymak, a master of gum bichromate living in Kyiv, the prints were made with four hands.
No comments yet.