Thistle flower by Olena Shkoda

A week of thirty-degree sun — and the body tires, like a flower drained of water. She welcomes this fatigue, knowing that life doesn’t always demand full force or total devotion. Sometimes it’s enough simply to be, to bloom only as much as the day allows. Even wire has its own geometry of flowering. Perhaps it is the toughest, most enduring garden of our age.

Flower – Nataliia Oliferovych

Photographer – Olena Shkoda

Nataliia Oliferovych aka Slavic Normal Girl — interdisciplinary transmedia artist, mainly vibing through performance. In her work, she’s literally pouring her guts out — raw, honest, no filter. Her personal experience is hella unique, but the pain and healing? Pretty universal for people who share her identity.

“I laugh to keep from crying” — that’s one of her main credos, straight from Lesia Ukrainka’s poem.

Olena Shkoda, a Ukrainian visual storyteller & creative director, focused on film photography rooted in Ukrainian aesthetics. 20+ years in art & fashion photography - based between nyc and Kyiv, with education received in Florence, Studio Marangoni. 

Her main fuel is experimenting with ideas of fashion and sexuality, approaching them with a lighthearted, often ironic touch. The artist works with different films and cameras and plays with light, shadows, angles and moods with incredible ease.