For its first photography exhibition, the library of the Jan Michalski Foundation is presenting the series Solovki by Jean-Luc Bertini, published last year by Le Bec en l’air. Starting in 1923, the Solovki islands were the site of the first labor camp opened by Russian revolutionaries starting in 1923. In the beginning, some form of cultural life was still tolerated and developed thanks to the presence of artists, intellectuals and scientists. A library with 30,000 volumes was pieced together with the first waves of deportees. But the prison conditions gradually worsened, making the camp a “laboratory” and a model for future Stalinist gulags. When the camp closed in 1939, the library disappeared without a trace.
In Spring 2013, the French writer Olivier Rolin and the Russian translator Valéry Kislov went to Russia in search of this library. They were accompanied by a film crew, led by the director Elisabeth Kapnist, and the photographer Jean-Luc Bertini. The journey took them to the outermost bounds of the White Sea.
The series of photographs captures a cold, silent landscape, a strange island that still bears traces of its penal past, but which has also become a protected nature reserve and one of the first Russian sites on the UNESCO list of world heritage.
The Solovki Islands in northwest Russia are known for their monastery, but also for having the first camp of what would become the Gulag. In this decor of extremes, the photographer Jean-Luc Bertini and writer Olivier Rolin have turned their attention to the camp library, now long gone. Their search constitutes a slow exploration of this region where ghosts of the past cross paths with the disappointed hopes of contemporary Russia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZtpHbF0wLE
EXHIBITION
Jean-Luc Bertini : Solovki, the Lost Library
From April 21st to June 28th, 2015
Fondation Jan Michalski
En Bois Désert
Rte de Chardève 2
CH-1147 Montricher
Switzerland
