Elena Subach's 'Chairs' Photographs Document Ukrainian Refugee Crisis at Liverpool Exhibition

Ukrainian photographer Elena Subach created the 2022 series 'Chairs,' comprising twenty-two photographs of empty seats with personal items left behind by refugees fleeing the Russian invasion. The work was produced while Subach volunteered with the Transcarpathian Gastronomic Battalion in Uzhhorod on the Slovakian border, assisting compatriots seeking safety in EU territory. Her images capture abandoned chairs, blankets, cups, and gloves used by displaced Ukrainians during temporary rests at the border crossing. Subach deliberately avoided photographing traumatic farewells between families, instead focusing on these vacant seats as 'transient monuments' to survival and injustice. The series draws parallels to Eugène Ionesco's 1952 absurdist play 'The Chairs,' where empty chairs symbolize misplaced meaning in the face of barbarity. 'Chairs' is featured in the exhibition 'HOME' at Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool, commissioned by Culture Liverpool and Liverpool City Council. This presentation resulted from a paid partnership between Open Eye Gallery and The Double Negative, which organized an open call for writers from the Liverpool City Region. Subach's work examines the bio-political complexities of the Ukrainian conflict through aesthetic means, reframing what philosopher Jacques Rancière terms 'a new landscape of the sensible.'