New Year’s Party
Adam Hinton
Donetsk, Donbas, Ukraine, 1992
A New Year's party in a miner's apartment.
‘I first travelled to Donetsk, Ukraine in December 1991, three months after the former Soviet republic had declared independence. My original idea was to focus on the coal mining industry and document the changes that were about to potentially turn the former USSR upside down. I stayed with a coal mining family, the Slakars. They were very open and welcoming and we soon got on very well and stuck up a close relationship. I ended up documenting them as part of the project. One week after my return home the USSR was no more. I went back in April 1992 and decided to spend my time documenting the family. They were very sociable and had people coming around all the time. They also took me with them to their social gatherings and I just hung out with them.
This picture is from one New Year's Eve, when they had a party. We went out that evening to a big Christmas tree in the suburbs of Donetsk, and drank lots of vodka. Victor was quite a boozer, the guy with the arm in the air is Victor. Then there’s their son Sergey, in the picture right. And you got Katia dancing with one of Victor's friends. This is before we went out, we’d had a big meal and everyone was going out to celebrate. As a photographer, I've always liked to record people's normal lives. What was fascinating about Ukraine at the time was that it seemed very reluctant to change. During the three years I spent travelling to Ukraine the country seemed to be in a time warp. Whilst the other former Soviet republics changed, life for the Slakars stayed much the same. It was only on my last visit that one could see the cracks appearing as the social system started to fail. I lost contact with the Slakars in 1994. Katia and Victor Slakar moved down to the Black Sea to retire and that was the last we heard from each other. ‘
Specification
Adam Hinton
Studying photojournalism in the 80s enabled Adam Hinton to combine his two passions, photography and politics. He would take photos at the demonstrations he went to: anti-apartheid, anti-nuclear, the miners’ strike, the picket lines at Wapping, aiming to demonstrate how each action has a reaction, and that nothing is without cause or response. As time has gone by, he has moved away from the more traditional reportage image to work in a way he feels to be more fluid and spontaneous.
Adam’s work has been exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery, the British Museum and the Photographer’s Gallery. He has published two photo books: MS-13, (2015) a portrait of members of the gang La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) incarcerated at a maximum security prison in El Salvador and Shibuya (2012) images of commuters during the morning and evening rush hours in Tokyo's Shibuya station.
Your Print
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