Portraits of Ukrainian refugees photographed by Germany-based Indian photographer Saurabh Narang are on view at the Museum of Applied Arts, Cologne, Germany. Saurabh, along with Ukrainian journalism student Anastasiia Reshetnyk is one of the winners of Manufactum - Staatspreis NRW 2023, awarded by the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Saurabh and Anastasiia are the winners in the Image and Print Media category for their project Sunflowers Will Still Grow, in which they documented the stories of refugees who fled to Gummersbach, Germany, following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022.
Saurabh terms Sunflowers Will Still Grow as a “slow project that required more than pressing the shutter”. The portraits on view at the Museum of Applied Arts, Cologne, are part of a larger multimedia project that has still photographs, video portraits, text and audio recordings in which the refugees share their memories of home and Ukraine’s culture. The project is named after the sunflower, Ukraine’s national flower that the country regards as a symbol of peace.
Stories in images
In one of the video portraits, a refugee from Kyiv, Ukraine, shares her love for her language, “It seems to me that the most beautiful thing in Ukraine is the language because it is melodic. I really like it when people speak Ukrainian.”
In another video portrait, a young mother remembers how her grandmother braided her hair with flowers and how she is trying something similar for her daughter.
Saurabh also recalls a conversation he and Anastasiia had with Raisa Burkova, a 75-year-old female history teacher who had travelled to every city in Ukraine for her research work on tradition and culture. Raisa spoke to Saurabh and Anastasiia about the spirit of freedom and independence in the people of Ukraine and had stated, “They lived on their land, worked on their land. They never conquered anyone.”
Saurabh mentions that the intent of the conversations was not to remind refugees of the war and fleeing experiences and rather focus on cultural details. He mentions that while some of the older refugees he photographed have now returned to Ukraine to be with their families, some of the younger refugees study and work in Germany.
Saurabh documented the story of one family from Ukraine in May 2022. He then met Anastasiia through a common friend, Natascha Löwen, who was working with Ukrianians who had fled to an old age home in Bernberg, Gummersbach. “I told Natascha that I wanted to meet and learn more about Ukrainians. She connected me to Anastasiia, a journalism student who also fled the war with her mother.” To date, Anastasiia and Saurabh have interviewed eight families.
The portraits were done with the consent of the refugees in their personal space. “Anastasiia and I have spent a lot of time connecting with all these people. Sometimes we just go without the camera to just listen to their stories. So the emotions captured in these portraits are the result of collaborative teamwork.”
The recognition to Sunflowers Will Still Grow and the award at Manufactum - Staatspreis NRW, he says, is special since he is the first Indian photographer to get this honour in 60 years. “It is rare to see a non-western BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of colour) photographer get recognised for a western story. I was told by a few reputed White photographers not to work on this story and rather find a story about the Indian community living in Germany. I am glad I didn’t take those words of wisdom literally. I hope it gives a message to international editors, curators and publishers to take the work of Indians and BIPOC photographers seriously and beyond our own culture to cover important global issues.”
