Drip by drip, we are fed with concrete
Multi-media project (2020 – 2022) https://bunker.cargo.site/
With this project, I question the Cold War legacy through the physical space of the bunker and my family archive. I examine the experiences of my Russian family during the Cold War times (1952 to 1986) using photography, oral history, archival documents and diaries. I look at the impact of the political events and the policies of silencing and misinformation on people’s lives and identities, from one generation to the next, and what this means in today’s world.
The Cold War bunker is the setting of my family stories. This project is an attempt to ‘surface’ the bunker and the buried memories, and to understand their present meanings. The bunker is a concrete survival machine that embodies our fears alongside its extreme functionality. Its legacy is still with us today. We are witnessing its tragic manifestations from the war in Ukraine to the continuing oppressions in Russia. We built our world on this legacy and it's time to speak up and break the silence.
This project evolved from my earlier work ‘Bunker Diaries’ (2021) that won the Shutter Hub Portfolio Award at FORMAT 2021.