Gomma Photography Grant 2025
Their Disposable Memories, 2025
Photographer
Sergey Melnitchenko
Their Disposable Memories, 2025
14 Feb, 2026
At the beginning of 2025, I launched a participatory documentary project as a continuation of my work on Along the Dnipro, with the aim of truthfully showing the realities of war through the eyes of those who live it. With the support of FOTOVRAMCI, I sent 25 disposable film cameras to Ukrainian soldiers stationed on different frontlines, so they could document their daily lives, work, and routines themselves. Along with the cameras, each participant returned a small personal artifact and a handwritten letter. This created not just a visual diary but a complete anthology of personal experiences, struggles, and memories. Photographs combined with artifacts form a material archive of this time that will remain part of our nation’s history after victory. The deepest wish of the project is for all its participants to survive — because for me they have become much more than contributors, they have become true friends.
About the photographer
Sergey Melnitchenko
Born in 1991 in Mykolaiv, Ukraine.In 2005, he became a Master of Sport of International Class in ballroom dance. From 2008 to 2014, he studied at the Admiral Makarov National University of Shipbuilding, graduating with a degree in Computer Systems Engineering.He began working in photography in 2009 and, in 2018, founded MYPH, a school dedicated to conceptual and art photography.Over the past years, he has participated in more than 150 solo and group exhibitions, fairs, and festivals worldwide. He is the recipient of numerous Ukrainian and international awards, including the Leica Oskar Barnack Award Newcomer (Berlin, 2017), Photographer of the Year (Kyiv, 2012, 2013, 2016), and the Golden Camera (Kyiv, 2012). He was shortlisted for Krakow Photomonth (2013) and the Pinchuk Art Centre Prize (2015), among others.His work has been presented at major international art fairs and festivals, including Paris Photo, Volta Art Fair, Photo L.A., Photo Basel, and Unseen. He was nominated for the Foam Paul Huf Award in 2020 and 2023.Since 2022, his work has been included in the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung collection (Munich, Germany), alongside artists such as Nan Goldin, Ren Hang, Sebastião Salgado, Thomas Struth, Nadav Kander, Luo Yang, and Pixy Liao. In 2022, he was selected as a talent of FUTURES – European Photography Platform.His works are held in private and public collections across the United States, Hong Kong, Ukraine, Poland, France, Germany, Belgium, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Japan, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, and beyond.
