Drying Corn, Chernivtsi, Ukraine, 1996

Tanya D'Avignon has worked as a Freelance photographer since 1972. From 1986 to 1992 she worked with National Geographic Magazine staff writers and photographers on various assignments in the former USSR . In 1995 she was an interpreter and liaison with the White House Press during President Clinton's tour to Ukraine, and in 1996 served as personal photographer for Secretary of State Madeline Albright's visit to Ukraine. Since 1976 she has been associated with the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute in Cambridge, MA, photo-documenting and illustrating the works of the Institute. Her photographs have been exhibited in the USA, Canada, Ukraine, Poland and Belarus, and have been published in numerous books, periodicals and newspapers. In 1998 Simply Ukraine, a book of Ms D'Avignon's photographs was published by Artex Management, Kyiv.

All Soul's Day, Guatemala, 1996

Myrosha Dziuk received her BFA from the University of Illinois, Champaign/Urbana after completing studies at the Institut Fur Europaische Studieren in Vienna, Austria. She worked as a freelance photo stylist while pursuing independent photo essays in Guatemala, Ukraine, Iceland and Italy. Since 1997 she has been a freelance photographer specializing in portraits and documentary photography. Her work has been exhibited in Minneapolis, Boston and Chicago.

Egyptian Desert series, 2000

Yarko Kobylecky received his BA From the University of Illinois, Chicago, and his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Since 1993 he has worked at the Chicago House in Lurer, Egypt For The Oriental institute, The University of Chicago. Previous positions include: The Cairo Museum, For Chicago House, Lurer, Egypt; The University of Michigan Expedition at Abydos, Egypt; The British Museum, Dept of Antiquities, El Kab, Egypt; The Bardo Museum of Roman Mosaics in Tunis, Tunisia For The Getty Conservation institute; The Art Institute of Chicago; The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario; The National Museum of American Art, Washington DC. His work has been exhibited at The Chicago Cultural Center, the Ukrainian institute of Modern Art in Chicago, and The Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh.

The three photographers presented here share more than their Ukrainian heritage, - they are descendants of all those who succumbed to the lure of the 'other' and set off to document that experience. The history of exploration is replete with chronicles of the greedy pursuit of trophies. However, there are journeys propelled instead by a hunger for knowledge and understanding. When the motives are f6r clarity, not conquest, the results enrich us. What the viewer might initially perceive as foreign in the details of lives within other cultures emerges instead as a shared sympathy. Tanya D'Avignon's Ukrainians, Myrosha Dziuk's Guatemalans and Yarko Kobylecky's images of the Egyptian desert reflect the common history of need, ritual and decay. Families continue to celebrate and mourn in every language, and the traces of civilizations fade as the desert reclaims itself, the sun casting the same shadows observed centuries ago.