To start with, we look for the keys in our surroundings, in the architecture of the cities which remember further back than we do. In the course of our lives, we walk miles through vast monumental spaces and imposing tower block estates, and rest in the shadows of curved modernist buildings and megalomaniac monuments. The aesthetic of these locations has been widely commodified and exoticised, but they’re much more than a backdrop — they shape the way we think, feel, breathe and remember. They also teach us how to move on. In the new world, the city is open to interpretation, invention and change. In their project Wake Up Nights, photographers Max von Gumppenberg and Patrick Bienert document contemporary Kiev going through subtle yet incredible transformation. In following the city’s burgeoning rave movement and a tightly-knit community of local creatives, they explore disused factories and river banks, graffiti-covered skateparks and hectic streets, idyllic countryside and the intimacy of flats in the early hours of the after-party. Wake Up Nights is a tender love letter to the city.
The study of unique architectural settings is one of the main preoccupations of the new generation of photographers from eastern Europe. At the same time, the visual narrative they construct goes much further than just documentation. It’s not about capturing the existing space, but about contributing to the ever-shifting character of the environment. In her project Disco Polo, Paulina Korobkiewicz studies the urban aesthetics of eastern Poland after 1989, focusing on the peculiar signs of its transition to global capitalism. Plastic palm trees make streets into a globalist non-place. A patchwork of colourful advertising and pastel shades over tower block architecture illustrates the contemporary collision of influences from East and West. [...]
At the same time, in these pictures the sense of locality doesn’t always dominate over broader artistic experiment. Based in Moscow, photographer Masha Demianova incorporates cinematic influences and the iconography of classical art to create a completely dislocated visual space. Through her lens we travel to dark lakes and poppy-coloured fields, places forged by ancient myths, and, most importantly, the inner space she shares with her subjects. Demianova is also one of the pioneers of female gaze photography in Russia, challenging prevailing representations of female sexuality and desire. [...]
The dimension of space, however, is not the only category the new generation of image-makers take on in their work. Time is another preoccupation, the future much more than the past. Portraiture serves as a way of understanding global history and the rise of new national identities. Hassan Kurbanbaev’s project Tashkent Youth was partly inspired by Uzbekistan’s 25th anniversary of independence — he documented the generation that has come to adulthood over the course of this past quarter century. For them, he points out, the Soviet Union is no more than distant history.
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