Patrick Bienert, Happy Springs

A collective portrait of Ukrainian youth. These images were made across the country between 2015 and 2020, on the way to the sea, along the banks of the Dnipro River to the beaches of the Black Sea, and further to the Arabat Spire, a mineral hot spring in a small village near the Sea of Azov called “Shchaslyvtseve,” which means “happy” in Ukrainian.

Patrick Bienert (born 1980) is a German photographer who works on long-term projects of portrait, landscape and documentary photography. He predominantly documents youth culture and transformation on the borders of Eastern Europe. In January 2020, he published the book East End of Europe, about a pro-European generation in Georgia. In 2017, Bienert published the book Wake Up Nights, about young nightlife culture in Ukraine.
Happy Springs is his third book.