Barricade

@barricadebook

About the Book Goat Swamp (Ukr., Kozyne Boloto) is the original name of the area in central Kiev where Maidan Nezalezhnosti or Independence Square finds itself the current epicenter of global tensions. Unlike sheep, goats do what they will and command special attention in folklore for their pugnacious and fertile abandonment to freedom. So it is with the creative accoutrements of these anonymous street fighters, their homemade uniforms, molotovs, trophies, and tire barricades — the smoking language of the Revolt’s siege apparatus, as photographed by Donald Weber and Arthur Bondar. The two worked independently to bring a dual perspective to the orchestrated chaos of a deadly street theatre. Weber focuses on cataloging the expressive impulses behind the protesters’ stoic dissimilitude and the almost holy rapture of their public self-assertion. Bondar explores redaction and heavy censorship, using ink blots to deny and assert the truth of visual interpretations. The final barricade lies in the political language of representation itself. Ukraine’s absolute polarities of past and future, its utter blackness and transcendent light, are the deeper themes of their interpretation. Barricade is a high-risk collaboration with the hundreds of brave men and women whose unquenchable thirst for change fuels hope for a new generation. –Text by Larry Frolick

15 posts

All the special items are arriving, here we have 8x12” prints, Ukrainian ribbon, the golden loaves of bread for your fridge (to hang, not eat) and my foot. Awaiting the book; anticipating shipping shortly.

Barricade getting printed in Germany. Shipping info will come soon.

100/100

We have SOLD OUT the limited special edition of 100 copies. Thank you to all the supporters across the world. We will not be accepting any new orders. You may purchase your regular copy of Barricade at: www.schiltpublishing.com The book is off to press now and we hope to be shipping by the end of November. Stay tuned for details!

The Barricade Special Edition

'Barricade' will be published by Schilt Publishing, released Fall 2014.

The Special Edition includes the following:

• Barricade Book • 8x12" Archival Print • 'Golden Bread' magnet • Ukrainian Ribbon • All packaged inside a genuine sandbag from the barricades of Kiev

Price is 50 Euros (plus shipping)

People come out to the streets because they can't suffer these criminals any more.

Vova, from Uzhgorod

This is the photograph you receive as an 8x12" printed on archival paper. A special mash-up made purposefully for the Special Edition. A montage of Arthur's photo of people warming themselves by fire and Don's photo of the main Grushevskogo barricade.

When ousted president Viktor Yanukovich fled Ukraine on February 21, he left behind a notoriously lavish estate said to have cost around a billon dollars. Over 140 acres, the compound has a private zoo, golf course, a replica of a Spanish galleon, an administrative complex, security force of 650 and a staff of one thousand.

Most of Yanukovich's and his mistresses personal belongings were packed up in the night of February 21, but there was still a sizeable amount of personal affects left scattered throughout the five story residence.

The oddest object found was a mysterious golden loaf of bread, weighing two kilos and said to be a gift from a corporate CEO to Yanukovich on his last birthday.

Today, this 'Golden Bread' has become a symbol of corruption in Ukraine.

The golden bread magnet is 8 cm long and is not edible, nor is it really gold.

I worked and I worked and I worked, forty years! And then it all disappeared. What’s left? So I come to find it.

Stanislav, from Kiev

About Arthur and Don

Arthur, 31, is from the eastern Ukrainian city of Krivoy Rog, an important mining center. Upon graduating university, he moved to Kiev where he worked almost twenty different jobs before he found his way in photography. Today, he lives in Moscow and is continually working on a stories in both Russia and Ukraine.

Don, 41, originally trained as an architect, where he worked for Rem Koolhaas for a few years before realizing he'd rather be a photographer. When Don was 11, his father leaned over to him and whispered something odd into his ear. They were driving by an ice rink where a hockey team from the Soviet Union was visiting, and his father said: “Those people don’t have any butter.” Perplexed and not understanding why someone would have no butter, it was also the first time he asked himself – why? And in the years since, Don's quest became to seek out the “why” of our complex and perplexing world.

Arthur and Don have been friends and colleagues for almost ten years, where they met while both lived in Kiev. Photographing the events in Kiev commonly referred to as 'EuroMaidan' was an emotional experience for both. For Arthur, this was his home. For Don, it was his second home, a place of many good memories and experiences.

A collaboration was the only way to tell this story. Both of them experienced the events in Kiev over 2013-2014. They covered this story from two different perspectives, creating a unique collaboration.

A ribbon in the national colours of Ukraine. Yellow represents the golden wheat and sunflowers of the Ukrainian steppe, while blue is a symbol of the vast sky and possibility of Ukraine.

“Whose Ukraine will my son inherit?”

Sasha, with his son Sasha, from suburban Kiev

A genuine Kiev barricade sandbag, from 'Novaya Liniya.' Many of the barricades were reinforced with thousands and thousands of sandbags, stuffed with snow, ice and whatever else could get inside them. As the weather warmed up, the barricades began to melt, and with that, the security of Maidan.

Your book, print and golden bread magnet will be enclosed inside, tied together with a Ukrainian flag ribbon.

Some sample images by Arthur and Don.

Sure, you can dress up the old cadres in fancy new Italian clothes, but they're still the same. Corrupt and selfish, that has been our lot for centuries.

Nastya, from Dnepropetrovsk, while wandering the grounds of deposed president Viktor Yanukovich's opulent Mezhigiriya estate, said to be worth one billion dollars.

Your Special Edition. Plus the book. Order now. Delivery Fall, 2014.

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