ORTHODOX CHIC by Alex Bykov, Oleksandr Burlaka, Sasha Kurmaz
ISBN: 9789665008545
Published by Osnovy Publishing LLC 

Orthodox Chic is the second book in a series of visual explorations of architecture and urban space in independent Ukraine. The authors of Orthodox Chic, architects Alex Bykov and Oleksandr Burlaka, alongside artist Sasha Kurmaz, turn to photographing post-Soviet religious architecture as a way of capturing its social, political and economic development. The book portrays new forms of religious architecture, from kiosks, shacks, pop-up chapels attached to giant shopping malls, apartment blocks and magnificent new cathedrals.
The authors work with several themes: the crisis that architecture faces as a professional discipline; developer strategies, whereby religion is used to manipulate and control land resources; and the status of religion of today. Nowadays, with the great increase of supposedly numinous places, authors question not only their authenticity but the possibility of an authentic religious experience. By looking closely at the place and its form, they draw attention to the fact that these sacred places do not fit within a symbolic hierarchy or system: they are fakes, both in body and in spirit. The manipulation of religion for appropriating and commercialising public space -- another one of the books main themes -- is evident in the small details. It seems as though the archaic institution of the Church fits into modern economic, technopolitical and visual paradigms. Surveillance cameras hang under the little roofs of church stalls which appear in favourable sites for large-scale construction, high-end cars parked nearby. Developers have another predatory strategy, whereby investors install small buildings with a cupola on them in the guise of a church or other religious building in public spaces in an attempt to clear these areas for further development.

The author of the introductory text is Asya Bazdyreva, art critic and co-author of research practice at Geocinema.