While focusing on moments of mistake and misrecognition, Naeem Mohaiemen’s research into aspirations towards utopia during the Cold War era, manifested through decolonization, revolution, and independence.
•
Marina Balakina
Photographer
Documentary photographer and visual storyteller. Was born in the Sverdlovsk region of Russia, now is based in Yekaterinburg. She is a graduate of School of Modern Photography Docdocdoc, Saint Petersburg. She explores the larger world through close personal narratives that are centered around the lives of people in small communities. Marina focuses on the study of identity, isolation and collective memory.
•
Molokans are Russian Christians who do not recognize any intermediary communication with God. Molokan history began in 18th Century with the rejection of icons, churches, hierarchies, within the Church and the numerous sacraments. The Russian Orthodox Church considers the religious movement to be sectarian. Once, Molokans lived throughout the country, but pressure from the government and the desire to establish a Molokan community forced them to migrate. Today, Molokan communities are scattered across Eastern and Western Russia, the Caucasus, former Soviet republics, Turkey, the USA, Mexico, Australia, and China. The customs and lifestyles of Molokans vary greatly from region to region. In Azerbaijan, Molokans live peacefully side by side with Muslims. This series was photographed in the Azeri villages of Chukhryurd, Khimilli, Ivanovka and Alty-Agach. Each village has its own unique identity, as each was founded by different communities from Russia. There is, however, something that unites them: a duality expressed, on the one hand, in the desire to preserve their unique cultural traditions and, on the other hand, the rapprochement towards the bearers of other traditions.
This is a story of how the older generation attempts to preserve the memory of their cultural origins and about the interpretation of their culture: Russians, Ukrainians and Azeris live side by side, having forgotten the differences that once set them apart. Meanwhile, the youth heads towards bigger towns and cities, so as to be educated and escape the pressure of their conservative families.
RELATED ARTICLES
-
Thirty Years of WomenFebruary 7 – April 11, 2020
This exhibit draws from Jackson Fine Art’s 30 year history of showing some of the most distinguished female voices in photography, illustrative of the gallery’s evolving vision through the years.
-
Elimination of ViolenceArt, Women & Awareness
The United Nations General Assembly has designated today International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Today we would like to once again celebrate the women who have inspired and created in the art world.
-
Collecting PracticesOct 12, 2019 – Nov 8, 2020
In 2019, the Botín Centre celebrates the 25th anniversary of Itineraries, the annual exhibition that displays the work of the artists awarded the Botín Foundation’s Visual Arts Grant each year, which has been running since 1993.
-
The American Document / Part IIFractured States / Peter van Agtmael
After returning from years of war coverage, Peter van Agtmael tries to piece together the memory, identity, race, class, and family, in a landscape which has become as surreal as the war he left behind.
-
Lise SarfatiPhotographer
Born in 1958 in Oran, Algeria Lise Sarfati lives and works between Paris and Los Angeles and is represented by Yossi Milo Gallery, NY, Rose Gallery, LA, La Galerie Particulière, Paris.
-
Interview with Saul LeiterBy David Gibson
“History of art is a history of great things neglected and ignored and mediocre things being admired. At different times things are different. The history of photography is a history of changes.” –Saul Leiter (more…)
-
Adorned / The Fashionable ShowDec 12, 2019 – Mar 11, 2020
The exhibition Adorned – The Fashionable Show presents intriguing and challenging fashion related photography projects created by a new generation of visual artists. (more…)
-
On the Peripheryby Sinziana Velicescu
Sinziana Velicescu’s work is a minimalist and abstract approach, a modern chronicling of a quiet land surveyor, completely separated of sentimentality. The publication of her series is a documentation of time, bracketed in images of framed surfaces of space.
