White Dress

Aksana Veniaminava's White Dress is a documentary project examining a tradition to keep a wedding gown not only for its sentimental value, but as a protective object — a talisman believed to hold a marriage together. The artist photographs women with their dresses at their homes, years after the wedding day. Together, images and heroines' testimonies reveal something larger than individual marriages: a collective memory, in which a single garment becomes the vessel for an entire world of meaning. The White Dress book is not simply a reproduction of the photographic project. It reopens the conversation and invites readers to look again at the decade-old images. It encourages them to consider whether perceptions of the white wedding dress as well as the idea, or perhaps the myth, of marriage have changed over time or remained the same. Artist: Aksana Veniaminava Aksana Veniaminava a contemporary artist from Belarus, currently residing in Paris. She's a documentary photographer with a strong focus on women's identity and memory in Eastern European culture. Through her photographic practice, Aksana Veniaminava explores what women remember — and why. Focusing on the intimate and personal, she traces the objects and traditions women keep, and the stories behind them. Her best-known project, ”'White Dress”', is a documentary photography series examining the tradition of preserving wedding dresses as protective objects believed to safeguard a marriage. Although rooted in Belarusian culture, the work addresses traditions and beliefs shared across different countries and continents. Designer: Alexey Murashko Alexey is a book designer based in Riga, Latvia, where he runs a one-man studio devoted to editorial projects. He designs art books, photo books, scientific publications and experimental editions, often working as co-editor. His books have won awards at the European Design Awards, D&AD and the Baltic Book Design Awards, making him one of Latvia's most prolific book designers. For the White Dress book he offered an unexpected perspective. Standing outside women's wedding traditions, trends and superstitions, he could keep a distant glance and create the visual narrative where the dress can be the main hero of the story. Text by: Maya Hristova Maya Hristova is a researcher, writer, and curator of Eastern European photographic history and contemporary practice. She is the founder of EEP Berlin, Editor-in-Chief of EEP Magazine, and initiator of RGULAR—the Research Grant for Ukrainian Lens-Based Artists & Researchers. She has contributed to Foam Magazine and has been both a speaker and an organizer of panel discussions at C/O Berlin, KVOST, and FOTOTREFF Berlin, among others. Maya Hristova's research on White Dress follows the wedding gown through Belarusian history: from regional folk costume created as a protective object, to the white dress spread by Soviet wedding palaces. She explores the superstition of keeping the gown hidden, compares wedding customs worldwide, and observes the Western gaze that often reads as clichés about Eastern Europe.