City of Home
Alina Kisina

Alina Kisina's photographic series 'City of Home' might, at first glance, seem merely to capture the daily life of her hometown of Kiev, Ukraine. Yet Kisina's strangely evocative photographs are concerned less with documentary impressions than with opening up realms above and beyond the mundane images that define the surface of her work. For the subway steps, skylines, facades, and factory lots that Kisina depicts resonate with an order that seems not of this world. Her pictures—often quite literally—reflect realms that seem to exist side-by-side with or beyond the everyday subject matter. Kisina’s serene, perfectly composed photographs actively lead us into higher realms that are uplifting and light: they cause us to transcend everyday existence and enter into planes of experience that are unknown.