The new Counterfuture book, “Raided”, is out now. Link in bio / story
💖
We have been working on it since 2020 following the release of our last book, Conceptual Art in Law Enforcement. It is a beautiful object, limited to 1000 copies. We will not print more.
💖
“Raided’ features evidence obtained by law enforcement agencies during raids on illegal brothels and sex clubs in Ukraine, and published in open sources. In the words of the artist:
💖
“The source material for Raided is operational photography and footage produced by Ukrainian law enforcement agencies and published in open sources. They are uploaded on the agencies’ social media accounts for everyone to see.
💖
“The viewer is invited to participate in a forceful invasion of a work space, following (often masked) authority into a tightly controlled realm as they violently break down doors to enter brothels and strip clubs and arresting alleged criminals and confiscating evidence with little respect for artistic considerations of photography and less so for the privacy of its subjects (whose faces have been blurred in this publication). An institutional ritual is being played out in real life consolidating the dominant position of the law.
💖
“The operational materials presented in this publication served a functional purpose. They were produced as a bureaucratic service to a judicial system and as documents and objective records of activities and situations that pertain to alleged crimes scenes.
💖
“In Raided, the chronology of events is deliberately altered by stripping the images of its spatial and temporal context in order to ask questions about the current state of state-society relations, about media, about the voyeuristic depiction of uncertainty, vulnerability and fear in order to research the visual language that is being used by authority to communicate with its subjects and the visual legacy left behind.”
"Final Departure", 120x140cm. Vinyl on canvas, 2026
I am out of Kyiv as of today. Four years I spent in Ukraine on this rotation 💀. Time has come to find something else to do. No shortage of wars. Although I would not mind stop working in war zones. Facing spring and summer break in Berlin now 🖤🌚🖤
This is the last painting I did in Kyiv. Let's see if it was indeed the final departure.
This cover features an images from Raided, a project by the anonymous artist Counterfuture @counterfuture.ptsd and @ben_ditto built from publicly released law enforcement footage of raids in Ukraine.
Pre-order now — link in bio.
This issue comes with a little something for the babes 🌸 Scented stickers in collab with @JOUISSANCE and @TEMPTRESS . Artist Counterfuture @counterfuture.ptsd
CREATIVE DIRECTOR BEN DITTO @ben_ditto
PAGES ARE TAKEN FROM THE BOOK “RAIDED” PUBLISHED IN 2024 BY DITTO.
This issue is delivered to you, baby, by:
Founder and Creative Director JULIE POLY @julie_poly
Art Directors ANTUK KAMAR & VLAD BOYKO @supracvit & @lad_boo
Art Direction & Graphic Design Assistant JOËLLE DESMET @j03ll3______ Graphic Designers BABBYCCINO @babbyccino , GLAFIRA STSELIUKOVA @glafira_glf , SETHY FERREIRA @ilovemygirlsmind , SERA VAN DE WATER @seravandewater , KATHARINA THEWATHIDA @katharina.thewathida
Coin CGI @ben_kugener
Head of Brand and Communications ANNA LUKASH @kikimeow38
Head of Partnerships NASTYA ZAMORSKA @zzamorskaya Digital Editor KATHE POULI @kathe.pouli
Text Editors KATERYNA YERMOLOVA, SVITLANA LIBET @svetalibet
Research BOGUMIŁA GREDA @nasty_______organic , VLADYSLAVA SOLOVYOVA @wit_hunny69
Editorial Assistant VLADA TEACA @vlada_tc , AOIFE MURPHY @aoifemurphy144 , DIANA KABAK @dnkba
