War Notes

Cheney Orr. New York: Fugitive Materials, 2022. 53 color photo archival pigment prints, and 53 color archival pigment prints from holograph measuring 3 ¼ x 4 ¼ in., housed in photo album measuring 5 ¼ x 8 in. One 3 ¼ x 4 ¼ in. print and 4 ¼ x 5 ¼ in. print inserted in front inside cover. One original unique Instax polaroid print measuring 2 ¼ x 3 ½ in. inserted in rear inside cover, inscribed in the artist’s hand. Stamped with silver ink on front cover and spine. Signed and numbered with blind stamp on rear inside cover. [with] War Notes [zine]. Saddle-stapled in wraps. 5 ½ x 8 ½ in. 56pp.

War Notes is a limited-edition facsimile of Pulitzer Prize-nominated photojournalist Cheney Orr’s album of portraits and interviews taken during his time in Ukraine in the Spring of 2022, and co-created with Ukrainian citizens during wartime.

War Notes is a project of memories in the making, chronicling the photographer’s encounters over six weeks traveling through Lviv, Odesa, Kyiv, and east to Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv, collecting a total of 53 portraits and interviews. Per participant, a single Fuji FP-100c polaroid was made. Orr then asked each participant to write their memories and emotions on a separate unexposed blank polaroid and conducted an in-depth interview. The polaroid portraits and written stories were collected in a single photo album that the artist carried with him as he traveled the country.

War Notes was produced in a signed and numbered edition of 24, each mimicking the artist's process when the project was constructed. Each book is accompanied by a limited-edition zine containing translations of each participant’s writing and further information from the interviews. The album includes one original Instax polaroid photographed and inscribed by the artist, one archival pigment print of the front cover of the original album, and an archival pigment print from holograph by the artist briefly explaining the project. The portraits and the accompanying stories are layered over one another in several places throughout the album to mimic the artist’s original album, encouraging viewers to handle the photographs and dive deeper into the work. This book is made in an edition of 24 to honor the 24th of February 2022 — when Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

War Notes breaks from the constraints of contemporary photojournalism, urgent deadlines, and the sensationalism often seen in war images. Instead, it focuses on the individuals, raw with recent experiences, as co-creators - offering them time and an opportunity to express themselves.

Cheney Orr was born in 1990 in Arizona and raised in New York City; his first long-term photo essay documented his father’s journey with early-onset Alzheimer's and was published by The New York Times in 2018. Later that year he was awarded the Mary Ellen Mark Memorial Scholarship to attend the one-year certificate program at the International Center of Photography as a 2019 graduate. In 2020, Orr was awarded a fellowship from the Rita & Alex Hillman Foundation. Additionally, he was nominated as a Pulitzer Prize Finalist for Feature Photography as a part of Reuters’ 2021 coverage of climate change. He has reported from throughout the U.S. and is a contributor to Reuters, Bloomberg News, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Agence France-Presse. The War Notes photo series and audio collection received a solo exhibition at Superchief Gallery in NYC and an NFT collection was launched via Vault by CNN, with profits directly funding humanitarian aid for Ukrainians. In 2014, the photographer had a solo exhibition at The Ukrainian Institute of America displaying large-scale silver-gelatin prints from his project A Future Uncertain: Young in Ukraine, gathering photographs taken during his first trip to the country in 2014. This project was a rare chance for the publisher and photographer, two brothers, to collaborate.

20% of proceeds from War Notes will be donated to 24.02 Fund, supporting Ukrainian journalists in the line of duty.