Mark Chehodaiev

This photo series looks at Austria's tourism infrastructure, which was historically intended for recreation or leisure activities. Now, the decaying hotels and resorts are being repurposed and serve as shelters for refugees, displaced people from around the world and people fleeing the war in Ukraine. 

These sites and their inhabitants coexist in a strange state where “temporary” becomes permanent. Financial and health-related limitations make integration difficult and lead to a life of isolation within the hotel. Since the law does not allow them to choose a permanent home for themselves, they are forced to adapt to whatever is available. At the same time, the places themselves change, their image and appearance shaped by the presence of their inhabitants. In this project, I capture this liminal reality and, more broadly, the less visible effects of wars and displacement.

Biography

Mark Chehodaiev, b. 1997 in Kyiv (UA); lives and works in Vienna (AT) since 2021. Chehodaiev works with site-specificity across photography, installation, and intervention. He studied stage design and cinematography at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture (MA) and graduated from the Contemporary Art Course at the Kyiv Academy of Media Arts in 2019. Currently, he is studying Site-Specific Art at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna.