Florian Bachmeier’s color photographs, which were taken in the Ukraine over the past eight years, succeed in making past and present historical processes in Ukraine visible and to describe their psychological and social effects on people and landscapes. He travels intensively all over the country, taking photos in the cities, in the villages and at the front. In the seventh year, an internal political conflict has turned into a merciless proxy war that has cost thousands of lives and spread all over the country in all its effects.

IN LIMBO, describes an apparent state of freezing and, at the same time, permanent uncertainty. The portraits tell of biographies in which the conflict is inscribed visible and invisible. In addition to the heroes’ monuments and the ruins of the last war, the front runs through the landscape. In the end, the only choice left for the people is either to settle in this state or to leave the country, their homeland.

Florian Bachmeier (* 1974) studied photography at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios (EAO) in Pamplona, Spain, and New History and Contemporary History at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany. As a documentary photographer, he has been working on long-term projects with a focus on Eastern Europe for many years. His photographs have been published in numerous magazines and journals, presented in international exhibitions and received several awards. Bachmeier took photos in Ukraine between 2013 and 2021. A selection of these photographs are now collected in his first photo book.