In the second half of the 20th century USSR began to implement large-scale hydropower projects in Siberia. "Great Construction Projects of Communism" changed the experience of developing Siberian spaces, created new ecosystems, found new opportunities for economic growth and increased the quality of life. However there was the other side: thousands of people were forced to relocate from the flooded areas, thousands of settlements were destroyed and flooded. "The Path of Waves" ” is a reflection of the consequences of building hydroelectric power stations. I investigate the problem of the loss of migrant's birthplace and their everyday way of life. The circumstances of that kind of migration are often traumatic, it doesn't regard the reasons why a person has changed his place. People irreversibly lost their homeland after flooding. Loss is conceptualized using “slivers” — project's artworks. I use slivers of the forests flooded during the construction of the hydroelectric power station. I glued photos to slivers. I use photos from personal archives of immigrants and local photographers. These images belong to the epochs preceding the flooding, they show everyday life. Slivers are physical traces of flooding, evidence of the destruction and disappearing of the ecosystem. Photography as a medium is aimed to testify and to oppose oblivion. When I created objects, I used photographs from the digital edition “Lost Coast” of the Lower Ilim Central Inter-Settlement Library named after A.N. Radishchev (personal albums of immigrants), photos by the Berdsk photographer George Putintsev.
Read more in Текст о проекте "Тропа волн"