Kate Hrynko - Midnight Express

2023

"Midnight Express" is an image/text documentary project chronicling my nocturnal voyages on trains number 023/024 between Kyiv and Chelm (Poland) in 2023.

Having never experienced evacuation from Ukraine, my journey began in April 2023 when I purchased my inaugural ticket for a train crossing borders. This narrative revolves around my individual encounters, phobias, and emotions amidst the backdrop of wartime travels. Despite initial trepidation, including fear of confined spaces and other anxieties, I ventured into photography during my travels and maintained a travel journal.

Over subsequent journeys, my anxiety waned, leading me to contemplate ways to enhance the process of documenting the train's environment. Thus, I started to bring my own source of light and diligently worked each night during my train sojourns. I captured scenes of empty cars while fellow passengers slumbered, took self-portraits, and penned down my feelings in my diary.

Totally I took 8 trains between Ukraine and Poland in 2023. The archive of my project contains over 100 photographs in 8 different trains of the same destination. Every journey has a written diary where I describe my feelings, thoughts, my dialogs and dialogs of other passengers.

From the travel diaries:

"16th April 2023.
023K Train, 4 Car, 35 Place

Who am I? It has been 3 years since last time I traveled abroad. Covid-19. Then the war. I was afraid to leave my city, my country. What happened to me? I take the train 023K to Poland for the first time. Now I have a feeling that I am learning to travel like for the first time in my life..."