At first glance, Alina Kisina’s photographic series City of Home might seem merely aimed at capturing the daily life of her hometown of Kiev, Ukraine.
Yet these strangely evocative photographs are in fact less concerned with documentary impressions than with opening up the realms above and beyond the mundane images that define the surface of her work. The subway steps, skylines, façades, and factory lots depicted, resonate with an order that seems not of this world. The pictures — often quite literally — reflect environments that seem to exist side-by-side with or beyond the mere material givens of the everyday subject matter. Although superficially static, the serene, perfectly composed photographs actively lead us into sentiments that are uplifting and light. They let us transcend the materiality of everyday existence to enter into planes of experience heretofore unknown.