We’re far away. We could be on the moon. The first photograph of the book calls to mind a monochrome Rothko canvas, two infinite planes in a thick mist. This is Siberia in all its greyness, Boris Mikhailov tell us in his poetic introduction to the region.
The forests here are so dense and inaccessible that in 1978, a group of geologists discovered a Russian Orthodox family living there who had never heard of the Second World War. In the frozen landscapes photographed by Emile Hyperion Dubuisson, the ways of the taiga can be glimpsed in the houses with piles of wood, reindeer heads, sable pelts, and sausage and salmon in the cellar. “Snow and taiga, solitude and freedom, severity and romance,” says Mikhailov.
This is the Sibera discovered by the 18-year old video assistant Dubuisson. And just like that he became a photographer, braving the hard conditions to collect a few memories from this otherworldly expedition. The ice-cold Moscow water ruined the film he tried to develop. The fine lines left by this labor-intensive process accentuate the lines of the harsh climate, smothering the landscape in a hachure veil.
With its avowed amateurism, the book is an ode to spontaneity and accidents. Let us praise the beautiful layout, which guides the reader into this world where silhouettes stalk the soft white trails reached only by helicopter, sled or snowmobile. It leaves one powerless and dreaming.
Emile Hyperion Dubuisson
“Far”
Editions ADAD Books, London
96 pages
35 £
http://adadbooks.com
http://emilehyperiondubuisson.com
