Maxim Dondyuk

Maxim Dondyuk is a photographer and artist who combines fieldwork, historical inquiry, and personal reflections with the medium of photography, video, text, and archival materials. His regular interests include history, memory, conflict, and their enduring impact. His recent projects examine the meanings of war, nuclear energy, and their impact on human perception. Maxim’s work has garnered prestigious awards, including the 2022 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography, the Lucie Award for the International Photographer of the Year. He was a finalist for the Prix Pictet Photography. His art has been exhibited at the Musée d’Art moderne de la ville de Paris, Somerset House in London, MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts in Rome, and other places.

During the Fellowship, Dondyuk will be working on “Chornobyl Archive,” a long-term photographic research project that he began in 2016. The project explores the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone through discovered and collected family photographs, film negatives, letters, and postcards that were left behind in the abandoned homes of the resettled area.