Contrary to the (rather dry) title of the exhibition, at Stop No. 2, no one gets off— they have already left, and a long time ago. Sergei Shestakov is fascinated by dead cities. He traveled to Chuckotka, Russia, about as far east as one can go, not far from Alaska, in search of an undesirable future. But Goudyn, a city abandoned by Soviet authorities at the end of the Cold War, represents a forgotten past. Twenty large color prints depict a succession of unsightly concrete buildings with crumbling walls and broken windows,that have been vacant for decades.
From 1958 to 1986, thousands of military personnel stationed in Goudyn guarded a nuclear missile battery aimed at the United States. The scenery could have been used for Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker. Goudyn is also a dreadful “zone” and Shestakov stresses the dread with suggestions of the future.
But what future could this be? The question grows all the more pressing once we’ve met Tatiana Georgievna, one of the last citizens of this dead city. Shestakov says he was flabbergasted to come across this elderly woman, “surviving God knows how, alone, without the least comfort: no heat, no telephone, no running water.” In these photographs, she could be any Russian grandmother, “adorable, generous, full of optimism.” Georgievna, in this future world, incarnates the timeless Mother Russia, deeply rooted, her back turned towards the future. Her motto, written on her kitchen calendar, surprised Shestakov enough for him to photograph it: “Everything will be alright, even if it isn’t.”
Emmanuel Grynszpan
Through May 9th, 2012
Salle d’exposition du Manège
Place du Manège, n°1
Moscou, Russie
