YOUTH IN RESILIENCE by STOITAM

Photography exhibition Youth in Resilience takes over two windows of Greenwich’s Firepit Gallery, staring defiantly out at passers by.

STOITAM is a multidisciplinary photographer based in London. Originally from Moscow, their art is centred around the themes of youth, migration, and queerness, and this exhibition is an exploration of the queer youth experience across borders and cultures.

In the right-hand window are three images of their friend in highly contrasted black and white. These images, they tell me, were taken in 2022 just after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the photos capture the struggle of a Ukrainian person deeply impacted by the conflict and also too far away from it. How do you function at a time like this? the photos ask. How does one remain a person in the face of the dehumanising force?

The subject lies with their mouth open on the ground, loses themselves in a leaf, hangs with both hands from something we can’t see with the street behind them, their knuckles big in the forefront of the photo. There is a sense of restlessness that reminds me of being a teenager during endless summers, roaming the streets searching for something to do, pent up. Aimlessly our subject tries to understand how to cope under the weight of something so large.

On the left-hand window is a larger series that captures moments with queer friends who glow in orange, lit with warmth like we are seeing them the juice of a tangerine. Friends grin on trains and beaches, roll cigarettes surrounded by grass.

The two windows sit softly alongside each other, so much difficulty on one side and so much joy and tenderness on the other: resilience visualised in different forms. It is resilient to exist through the worst of times. It is resilient, too, to find joy and connection, especially as a queer person in the current climate.

Youth in Resilience is showing at Firepit Gallery until 19th July.