“I grew up in the Eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas. As a kid, I climbed the terricon, the coal mine spoil tip, and observed the landscape around my small working-class hometown of Khartsyzsk. I saw an endless steppe with coal mines, steel plant pipes, and blocks of Soviet-style residential houses. Back then, the air smelled like feather grass and estragon. In 2014, it smelled like gunpowder.
Russian troops invaded Ukraine in Donbas in 2014. Since then, the region has remained the epicenter of the conflict. After the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, many towns in Donbas, like Bakhmut and Avdiivka, were destroyed and then occupied by Russian troops, while others experiencing daily missile strikes and danger of further occupation.
This unfolding tragedy is very personal to me. My photography journey started in Donbas when I began documenting my hometown during the turbulent 2014. My family lives in Russian-controlled territory, to which I have no access. However, I've repeatedly returned to Donbas to photograph the region for ten years. Dozens of human stories and my archives became the core of the Love Letter to Donbas project.
Unlike mainstream media coverage, I focus on small frontline communities navigating their lives on the conflict edge, whose stories are often overlooked. The project documents the remaining life of the region in its simplicity and beauty. I can compare working in Donbas to photographing a beloved person with a terminal diagnosis. With all the pain and destruction it brought to Donbas, Russia is like a progressive illness to the beloved motherland. Every news about artillery attacks on Donbas civilians, every lost village, gives me pain and motivates me to photograph more. With my project, I want to make a memory of Donbas until it completely vanishes in the hell of the war.” - Serhii Korovayny.
Fishermen watching sunrise above Azovstal plant in Mariupol, Ukraine, on 22 March 2021. In 2022, the city and the factory were completely destroyed by a Russian offensive.
Members of a Russian-backed militia attending a Christmas performance by the local children's dance group on the main square of Russian-occupied Khartsyzsk on 6 January 2015.
Ukrainian soldiers are celebrating their wedding on the beach near the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, Ukraine, in June 2019. During the siege of Mariupol in 2022, Azovstal became an infamous fortress of Ukrainian troops in the city.
Remains of the wheat field finished burning near the highway from Pokrovsk, Ukraine to the frontline on 13 August 2024. Many fields in this area catch fire from Russian shelling in summer 2024.
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Serhii Korovayny is a Ukrainian photojournalist. His masterclass project, A Love letter to Donbas, focuses on the everyday lives of residents of the region. It is a tribute to its beauty and fragility amid the brutal reality of the conflict.
For the 28th edition of the Joop Swart Masterclass, we brought together 12 emerging photographers from around the world to develop a project, and develop the tools to make a viable career in photography.
Launched in 1994, the Joop Swart Masterclass is World Press Photo’s best-known educational program for emerging photographers, encouraging new and diverse approaches to photojournalism, documentary photography and visual storytelling. After a three-year hiatus, the Joop Swart Masterclass returns this year, with a focus on the MENA region, thanks to funding from the Porticus Foundation.
See more work by 2024 Joop Swart Masterclass participants here
