Summer Shore

personal, documentary
2016 — 2020
Arctic Russia

Summer Shore is the geographical name of the coastal area of the White Sea located on the eastern side of the Onegian Peninsula in the north of the Arkhangelsk Region. This series has the same title — «Summer Shore». I spent my childhood on the outskirts of Severodvinsk by the White Sea. Our windows were facing west. Every evening, before plunging into darkness, the sun threw the last beams of light through the windows. Where the sun was setting, the coast disappeared behind the horizon. That world left me only memories and few things. But the shore is still there and I‘ve been dreaming about traveling there. In this series, I try to understand how memories affect perception. 

Through this series, I explored the constancy and changeability that I observed in nature and in the interactions of the local inhabitants—the Pomors. I juxtaposed this with my childhood memories and the traumas from encounters with death, the transience of life, which affected my vision. And with how the sea would reshape the coastline every year, or how this place changes the cycle of polar days and nights. I expressed my observations and reflections in artistic form, through symbols and images and their sequential arrangement. The final form of this expression is a leporello book. 

The basis of human perception is vision; it is the perception of light. Ideas of light are at the core of human cultures. Light is the source of life, information, the sun is at the center of our world. The principles of time measurement are based on the movement of heavenly bodies. Time inevitably moves forward, life in its stream is inconstant and often doomed to fade away. When time stops, the movement and light also stop. Where time stood still, there would be nothing but darkness. So, imagine that everything has stopped. So far, your vision retains the afterimage of light — bright colored spots: as if, after looking directly at the sun, you close your eyes. But they fade away too, and complete darkness sets in, you get lost in it. The world that once surrounded you ceases to exist in its usual forms. Once in this darkness, you find yourself like a child in the face of the unknown, and at the same time in the face of yourself. You experience coldness and fear, loneliness, and the only thing you wish for is the return of light, variety, flashes and fades, because they are the life.