Daniel Jack Lyons
Tanya, 2015

Print size: 32 x 22 cm including white border

“I met Tanya in 2015, when this photo was taken. We stayed in touch, meeting up several times during my trips to Ukraine in the years that followed. When we first met, she was living in Kyiv and working for a clothing designer. Herself a designer and a photographer, she currently lives in Berlin.

Tanya considers herself the luckiest of her family, as all her loved ones remain in Ukraine. Her mother refuses to leave without her husband, and has been organising the evacuation of colleagues from other cities. Her father has joined the territorial defence in Kyiv, and her grandfather was visiting Mariupol on the morning of the invasion. She has not heard from him since. In her own words: ‘I am not ready to lose my family – my family is ready to fight for our country. Russia, what are you fighting for?’"