On Being Russian
On Being Russian gathers projects rooted in particular places and events. Together they trace how my relationship to Russia has changed from childhood to the present.
I was born at the end of the Soviet era and grew up through the 1990s and the formation of post-Soviet Russia.
That history remains active in the work, from family memory and return journeys to projects made in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
The project is built around a city that already feels layered before the camera begins its work. Bare branches and wires, old façades, colour ruptures, and exposed surfaces gather into a field where the image feels constructed before it becomes readable.
Made in spring 2022, shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the work took the form of a public performance in central London. A grotesque costume representing Russia as a war creature was carried through the city.
This fragment comes from a book begun after travelling to Rostov-on-Don for my grandfather’s funeral. The page follows one photograph: a roadside structure painted with the words “СИЛА ДОБРА.”
A catalogue and exhibition document around travel, return, Rostov, family interiors, winter routes, and the visual pressure of distance.
An early video work about a courtyard in Rostov-on-Don, the market beside it, and the animals that repeatedly appeared there during the 1990s.
Eight photographs from my final visit to a Black Sea community that had grown in the grey zone between a university base and an informal tent settlement. The images show the camp after everyone had left for the night, as my connection to the place was ending.