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Motherland
Simon Roberts travelled across Russia between July 2004 and August 2005, making pictures in over 200 locations and creating one of the most extensive, comprehensive photographic accounts of this vast country by a Westerner. His images are not clichéd representations of a Russia ground down by poverty and despair; rather, he presents a beautiful and awe-inspiring land, with a dignified people empowered by a growing optimism and a deep rooted sense of national esteem. The photographs explore the notion of Russia’s “modest beauty”. Whilst acknowledging their country’s deficiencies, Russians nevertheless believe their native land to be a remarkable and exceptional place. They convey an optimism about their country, an optimism borne of more than just patriotism. They see Russia as home, their ‘rodina’, and they see its landscapes and people as being unique – set apart, spiritual, resilient, even holy. Russians carry with them an innate sense of the history of ‘the Motherland’ and, through it, feel inextricably connected to one another. This nebulous spirituality, this Russianness, is elusive yet all pervasive.
Motherland was published by Chris Boot Ltd (2007) and was shortlisted for the Arles Contemporary Book Award and selected as one of PHotoEspana Year’s Best Photography Books.
“Motherland is a beautifully resolved body of work and the pervading air of melancholy, so suited the subject. The editing together of landscapes and figure studies work powerfully together – and Simon’s eye for the special detail that lifts a picture above a record to become a kind of poetry is evident in every image.” Martin Barnes, Curator of Photographs, V&A
For more information about the project, visit the Motherland book website here
Downloads:Book essay by Rosamund Bartlett: “The Meaning of Motherland” (pdf)
Contact sheet of photographic plates (pdf)
Reviews (pdf) -
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Title Airport departure lounge, Magadan, Far East Russia, August 2004 -
Title Identical twins, Elena and Vera Karnova, Magadan, Far East Russia, August 2004 -
Title Police road safety sign, Magadan, Far East Russia, August 2004 -
Title Glory to the Working Class! Khabarovsk, Far East Russia, October 2004 -
Title Drilling rigs, Kupol gold mine, Chukotka, Far East, September 2004 -
Title Driller, Kupol gold mine, Chukotka, Far East, September 2004 -
Title Evgenia Kuzminya , waitress at Cafe Pilot, Magadan, Far East Russia, August 2004 -
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Title Train passengers at dusk, Birobidzhan, Far East Russia, October 2004 -
Title Entrance hall to a food market, Khabarovsk, Far East Russia, October 2004 -
Title Dockworker in Petropavlovsk Port canteen, Kamchatka Peninsula, Far East Russia, October 2004 -
Title Café Pilot, Magadan, Far East, August 2004 -
Title Sturgeon poachers, Kolya Koryakin and Xena Vassif, Kamchatka Peninsula, Far East Russia, October 2004 -
Title Zhenya Seychov, wrestler, Khabarovsk, Far East Russia, October 2004 -
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Title Camping with Sasha and Paval, Kamchatka Peninsula, Far East Russia, October 2004 -
Title Apartment blocks reflected in water, Sakhalin Island, Far East Russia, October 2004 -
Title Galina and Sasha, Sakhalin Island, Far East Russia, October 2004 -
Title Alexandrovsk Port, Sakhalin Island, Far East Russia, October 2004 -
Title Port officials, Vladivostok, Far East Russia, October 2004 -
Title Taxis cross the frozen Lena River, Yakutsk, Far East Russia, November 2004 -
Title Zhenya and his pregnant fiance Mia, Yakutsk, Eastern Siberia, November 2004 -
Title An elderly passenger is carried off the Trans-Siberian, Chita, Eastern Siberia, November 2004 -
Title Tiger print bedspread in the Druzhba hotel, Kyakhta, Eastern Siberia, November 2004 -
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Title Worldâs largest bust of Lenin, Ulan Ude, Eastern Siberia, November 2004 -
Title Lyuba in her kitchen, Port Baikal, Eastern Siberia, November 2004 -
Title Order of Maternal Glory dinner, Olkhon Island, Lake Baikal, Eastern Siberia, December 2004 -
Title The lounge of a former sanitorium, Sludyanka, Eastern Siberia, November 2004 -
Title Friends keep warm by the eternal flame, St Petersburg, Northwestern Region, December 2004 -
Title A Christmas tree and advertising billboard, Murmansk, Northwestern Region, January 2005 -
Title Abandoned warship in the Kola Bay, Murmansk, Northwestern Region, January 2005 -
Title Maxim Kovalov, Cossack soldier, Rostov-on-Don, Northern Caucasus, March 2005 -
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Title Meat market, Pyatigorsk, Northern Caucasus. April 2005 -
Title Outdoor market in Grozny, Chechnya, Northern Caucasus, April 2005 -
Title School Number One, Beslan, North Ossetia, April 2005 -
Title Ballroom dancers, Nikita and Rufina, Omsk, Western Siberia, May 2005 -
Title Victory Day picnic, Yekaterinburg, Urals, May 2005 -
Title Sergei and Kostya Akshents, Yekaterinburg, Urals, May 2005 -
Title Deflated crocodile on Victory Day, Yekaterinburg, Urals, May 2005 -
Title A man eats lunch in a roadside cafe, Altai Mountains, Western Siberia, June 2005 -
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Title Woodland, Zheleznogorsk, Eastern Siberia, May 2005 -
Title A marching school band pass under Lenin, Ulyanovsk, Volga, June 2005 -
Title Yevgeny Chavkin at his graduation ceremony, Ulyanovsk, Volga, June 2005 -
Title Car tracks, Tebelir, Altai Mountains, June 2005 -
Title Two friends embrace behind Lenin, Volgograd, Volga, June 2005 -
Title Pilgrimage to Gremyachi Kluch, Northern Moscow, Central Russia, July 2005 -
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Title Arkadiy and Polina, Tomsk, Western Siberia, May 2005 -
Title Young lovers on the banks of the Volga River, Astrakhan, Volga, June 2005 -
Title Holidaymakers onboard the Afanasy Nikitin cruise ship, Volga River, Volga, June 2005 -
Title A new development of luxury apartments, Moscow, Central Region, July 2005
