Alexander Chekmenev: Luhansk 1994-1998

Alexander Chekmenev. Born 1969, Luhansk, eastern Ukraine.

Chekmenev started his career in 1988 as an apprentice photographer in a studio in his home city of Luhansk. In search of his own style, he began photographing people on the streets and in their homes to show the devastating effects of the economic crisis after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In particular, his work gave an intimate and unique perspective on the turmoil caused to the Donbas mining industry as Ukraine underwent significant social and political upheaval. He moved to Kyiv in 1997, where he still works today as a photojournalist, using the medium to document the progress made and the challenges faced by his country and its people through peacetime, revolutions and war.

  Chekmenev's work has been published in The New York Times, New York Times Magazine, TIME Magazine, TIME LightBox, New Yorker Photo Booth, Quartz Magazine, The Guardian, Vice Magazine, WIRED Magazine and The Atlantic Magazin, THE TIMES Magazine and The Sunday Times.