Residential and Communal Eternity

Anny Gareeva is a photographer from Kharkiv, currently based in Chernivtsi. In her artistic practice, she explores the inner worlds of her subjects — their experiences, associations, and emotions. In this work, Anny steps away from her usual medium of photography and turns to installation to tell the story of her grandmother.

Anny’s grandmother, born in 1941, owned an apartment in Kharkiv but spent the final years of her life in russia’s Belgorod region. She passed away six months before the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022. Due to the war, the family was unable to formalize the inheritance, and thus, for nearly four years, the grandmother has continued to “live” within the Ukrainian legal system — utility bills for her Kharkiv apartment are still issued in her name.

The project examines how bureaucracy extends a person’s “life” beyond physical death. Even from the other world, the grandmother remains an active figure within the system — receiving bills, accumulating debts, and appearing as a registered consumer of services. The work raises questions about what it means to be “alive” within digital and paper-based state systems, and where the boundary lies between the body and its bureaucratic shadow. It is a study of the mechanical memory of the state — of how documents can outlive a human being — as well as a reflection on the role of memory and everyday life in sustaining the presence of the dead among the living.