<![CDATA[The Project Mental

How did you collectively form Grand Larceny, and how did you come up with the name?

Grand Larceny was actually what Dmytro was charged with In Odessa, around 2010. We pooled our savings together to bail him out. We have been friends forever and we thought our pooling together of funds would be an awesome platform to pool together all of our individual design ideas. It's an extremely symbolic story for us both so we don’t wanna tell too much about it, because we are afraid of karma! We studied together and at some point, then one of us got busted, and in fact that's how it all started in 2011.

What is life like in Kiev right now with the Corona pandemic? How has it effected your lives?

In Kiev, the situation is quite complicated, but compared to other large European cities there are much fewer people who get the virus, almost the entire city is paralyzed. We, like everyone, try to stay home, it reminds us of a house arrest, we hope that this will not take long and the virus will Be Stopped

I love your style and that your work is edgy in a playful/unique way. Any particular reason why you generally shoot kids and adolescents as your subjects?

We are interested in working with adolescents because they have sincerity and there is no falsehood and pretense, and their consciousness is not clogged with social rules and norms. they live for their pleasure and we are very impressed by this.

Who -or- what are your your biggest influences/inspirations?

We are inspired by those who, like us, work with the theme of adolescents, it was always interesting to watch the work of Larry Clark, Harmony Korine, Ed Tempelton, Ari Marcopoulos and others.

Is there anything about Grand Larceny that people would be surprised -or- shocked by knowing?

Of course, but was the Grand Larceny story itself not enough for you?!