„A strong man is not the one who fights. A strong man is the one who conquers himself.“

Tolstoy, 1894, Moscow.

I come from a family where men remain silent.
БРАТ explores a world where masculinity is shaped by discipline, strength, and control.
By feeling and suppressing.
Strength and weakness.

By the inner and the outer.
Where retreat is not an option, and verses of hardness, discipline, and control leave no room for vulnerability or closeness.
What happens when tenderness begins to speak again?
When a gaze, shaped by hardness, is suddenly allowed to soften?
БРАТ tells of brothers by blood, by shared heritage and mutual understanding.
This work is an approach - to what masculinity means to me and what it means to men in Eastern Europe. 

One, that allows for contradiction.
One, that doesn’t break under the weight of hardness but instead reshapes within tenderness.

Thanks to my mentor Irina Ruppert for the past year and thanks to Charlotte Hölter for the amazing text.