Project statement
“Nothing but a Curtain” (2021) is a documentary project about womanhood, femininity and gender in Eastern Europe. The collapse of the Soviet Union meant the loss of former identities and the acquisition of a new sense of individuality. To this day, growing up in Central and Eastern Europe means facing male-dominated political systems, sexist stereotypes, restrictive beauty standards, familial and religious expectations.
After a year and a half of research and preparation, in 2021, I travelled 7,325 km (4,552 miles) for 100 days across the former “Eastern Bloc”. Following the historic “Iron Curtain” border, I documented the stories of 104 individuals through both photography and interviews, capturing their unique perspectives on personal experiences related to gender and womanhood.
Travelling only by public transport, I embarked on a journey that took me to 20 cities spanning Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.
The fall of communism in Europe, sympobolised by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, marked a profound period of personal, social and political transformation for millions of individuals. My particular focus during this project was on those who share my generation – those born in or after 1989 – and individuals identifying as women, non-binary, genderfluid and transgender, born during this pivotal era of change. With this work, my aim is to disrupt prevailing narratives surrounding Central and Eastern European women and non-binary individuals, while also fostering a dialogue on the intersections of borders and gender identity in the 21st century.
I embarked on this journey with a Kiev 80, a medium format analogue camera from 1978, produced in a military factory in Kiev. The camera’s metal shutter, while capturing images, leaves behind a distinct “curtain” of light, reminiscent of how Soviet history has influenced the evolution of gender identity. This visual element also serves as a poignant metaphor, echoing the presence of the “Iron Curtain” that can be observed in the images.
__________
Biography
Zula Rabikowska is a Polish queer photographer and visual artist currently based in London. Zula was born in Poland, grew up in the UK and her experience of migration influences her practice. Zula’s projects explore migration, gender and LGBTQI+ communities often with a focus on Central and Eastern Europe. Zula is interested in pushing the boundaries of traditional social documentary practice and often works with multimedia, film, and analogue photography, and incorporates archival images and documents to challenge conventional visual story-telling norms.
Zula’s work has a social and documentary focus, and she concentrates on rarely-documented communities and subcultures who are drawn together by a shared identity, passion or cultural heritage. Zula’s projects to date have explored gender identity in Eastern Europe, LGBTQI+ communities in the Balkans, migrant identity in the UK post-Brexit, Vietnamese Communities in Poland and LGBTQI+ Muslim communities in London.
Zula holds an MRes in French Postcolonial Literature from the University of Warwick and an MA in Documentary Photography from the University of the Arts London. She has exhibited as a solo artist in London (England) and Belfast (Northern Ireland), and her group shows include Format Festival (UK), Brighton Photo Fringe (UK), Lahti Fringe Festival (Finland), Gothenburg Fringe Festival (Sweden) Urban Banks Berlin (Germany) and Enjoy Museum of Art Beijing (China). Zula’s work has been published internationally including Dazed and Confused, British Journal of Photography, the BCC, The Times. Guardian, The Calvert Journal (amongst others). Zula works as a photographer in Europe, and a photography lecturer in Kingston University London, and she is also a co-founder of the Red Zenith Collective, an online platform for non-binary and female artists from Central and Eastern Europe.
“Nothing but a Curtain” was funded by Getty Images, the Mead Fellowship and Kuala Lumpur Project Awards. Images from this project will be will be exhibited at Four Corners Gallery, London, from 10th – 14th October, 2023.
