Robin Hinsch's 'Lonely Are All the Bridges' presents a decade-long photographic portrait of Ukraine beyond war

German photographer Robin Hinsch has released 'Lonely Are All the Bridges,' a photographic book documenting Ukraine over more than a decade, beginning with his first visit in 2010. Rather than focusing directly on conflict, the project captures a suspended time between past and present through layered landscapes, isolated human figures, and symbolic elements. Hinsch was initially drawn by political tensions under then-president Viktor Yanukovych, described as 'the new dictator between East and West.' The work includes images from various years and locations: a 2012 bus stop in Odesa Oblast, the 2018 Malanka celebration in Krasnoilsk, the 2022 bombing of Mykolaiv Zoo, the destroyed Retroville shopping center in Kyiv in 2022, and a 2023 bridge in Gorochowatka. Post-invasion scenes show resilience, like pigeon keeper Serhii Chernyshov returning to Irpin in 2022 to find his birds survived. Recurring symbols include animals—horses, stray dogs, a polar bear—and bridges, referencing a poem by Ingeborg Bachmann. The book avoids linear narrative, mixing color and black-and-white photos without captions to create indefinite time. Hinsch cites Andrei Tarkovsky's film 'Mirror' as an influence for its fragmented structure of memories and dreams. The result is a melancholic, cinematic visual sequence reflecting slow societal transformations, divisions, and connections in Ukrainian landscape and identity.