Suicide is a taboo.
We talk about depression, but hide its most extreme consequence — suicide. A word we avoid, a reality we silence.
An online game, a social media challenge, organized suicide. The “Blue Whale Challenge.”
Born in Russia in 2013. Fifty tasks over fifty days: wake up at 4:20 a.m., watch disturbing videos, listen to melancholic music. Tasks dictated by anonymous administrators. Pain becomes method, isolation becomes rule, until the final step: suicide. No metaphor — the blue whale dies.
On November 22, 2015, Renata Kambolina (Rina Palenkova) threw herself under a train to complete the game. Her death went viral — a ritual to be replicated.
In 2017, Philipp Budeikin was arrested for pushing 16 teenagers to suicide, calling them “biological waste.”
Today, the Blue Whale Challenge is mostly forgotten. Hashtags deleted, groups shut down, curators arrested.
Each image in this work represents a step — the gradual loss of self, culminating in the ultimate sacrifice.
Between light and shadow. Between dying whole, following someone else’s orders, or living half a life — imagining your own death, day after day.
