Boris Mikhailov, creator of a poetic and radical body of work, focuses on everyday life, capturing social and historical conditions in the Soviet Union and the changes after 1989 as the established order broke down in Ukraine. In the 1970s, he began photographing “life as it is”: the “city without a main street”, the anti-heroic, incidental, private and leisurely. Case History, a harrowing monument to those forgotten in the transition between systems, documented homelessness in post-Soviet Ukraine. His critical photographs, provocative performances and combinations of words and images make him a conceptual documentary artist, creating moving depictions of wounded humanity that combine humour and seriousness. This book surveys his entire oeuvre. Essays on individual works and periods accompany a flow of images highlighting his varied techniques and deepening our understanding of a rich practice that deliberately appears unspectacular. Created in collaboration with Fotomuseum Winterthur.