groups & artists

In the early 1970s, the beginning of what later became known as the period of stagnation in Soviet Union history, eight photographers in Kharkiv, Ukraine, joined efforts in fighting the Soviet aesthetic canon and formed an independent (read underground) group of art photography. They called themselves the Vremya group. The name 'Vremya' (means 'time' in Russian) suggested a move away from traditional imagery towards an innovative form of visual expression.

The underground artistic movement of Kharkiv photographers of the 1970s gave life to a new visual language in photography which was taken further during the Perestroyka years when ideological barriers were gradually dropped. Since the mid-1980s, another generation of photographers adopted and further developed the new aesthetics, thus postulating the emergence of a school of fine art photography with common goals and shared principles. It was the time when a number of the most important bodies of work in the history of Kharkiv photography was created.

The 2000s and 2010s showed further dissemination of Kharkiv School ideas. A number of younger emerging artists, both from Kharkiv and other regions of Ukraine, used this aesthetic context as a springboard in their artistic research, continuing the traditions of Kharkiv photography today. In 2010 the Ukrainian Photographic Alternative (UPhA) Association was formed bringing together artists from all over Ukraine in an effort to withstand the onslaught of traditional tastes.