“The Holy Russian Land is great, and everywhere the sun shines.”
“There is no evil without good.”
“The sun will shine into our yard too.”
“After a storm comes fair weather, after sorrow comes joy.”
“A bird may be known by its flight.”
“Stormy weather cannot stay all the time, the red sun will come out,too.”
(Common Russian sayings)
Simon Roberts wants to break down the stereotypes that own you… Simon Roberts wants to kill the preconceptions that exist in your comfy-know-it-all-media-fed-head. He wants to kill your ideas about “Russia”… erase your broken-down-commie-red-hammer & sickle story… and give you something new. He wants to take your Russian heroin trade, your arms traders, your vodka, your strippers, your eastern block whores… take away your peasant-poverty-places, your famine-your hunger-your cold… take away your frozen-tundra-notions and whack you right upside your preconceived-head. His journey through Russia is one of liberation, not exploitation… it is a journey to uncover truth and dignity, timelessness and respect… rather than magnify crime or inflate historical myth. If Rob Hornstra is the Yin, Simon Roberts is the Yang (both approaches work very well)… if Rob Hornstra is the heavy metal, Simon Roberts is the concerto. It is a vision speaking of majesty, community, perserverance and grace, not drugs, sex, guns and titillation. He would like to take the epic land that is “Russia” and make it intimate… reel it in and soften it… let you see the beauty and hope, not the suffering and pain. Simon deals in optimism and humanity, not tragedy, corruption and misery…
“Motherland” or “Rodina” (Russian from “Rod”) is the notion of Mother Russia as a provider, the place of one’s birth, the nurturer of her citizens as her children. It is a notion that is foreign for us outside of the land… it carries psychological, social, personal and cultural feeling and meaning. We can reach out to grasp it in the intellectual sense, anyone can do that, but… we lose everything and at once know nothing about the spiritual. The “Motherland” carries notions of the land as a progenitor, almost a maternal god… holy, the root of all blood ties, the enabler of clan-the village-the country, the physical earth but also the metaphysical. It unifies and it gives sustenance… it is pride, it is patriotism, it is noble, it is transcending and it is belonging. It is all of this… and it is more. This “Motherland” (published by Chris Boot, Ltd), this poetic photographic work is the visual “Rodina”… it is deep, soft, broad, strong, fierce… beautiful. Simon’s view is humanistic, it is admiring, it is respectful, even reverent. Skin and earth, heartbeat and breath, labor and love, pride-belonging. This work follows a geographical map but it is a “Rodina” map, a physical travel but also a “Rodina-tale”, a “Motherland-painting”… a people, a land. Encompassing and full of “place”, it is identity, it is pride, it is celebration…
Captions are below… but, I would encourage you to look again at the work, feel it and then read the captions as a part II. (I encourage this approach with all photography)
Explore the “Motherland”…
Own the “Motherland”…
Explore Simon’s “We English” project…
And captions…
1. Holidaymakers onboard the Afanasy Nikitin cruise ship. Volga River.
Volga, June 2005
2. Abandoned fishing vessels in Alexandrovsk Port. Sakhalin Island, October 2004
3. Taxis cross the frozen Lena River. Yakutsk. Far East Russia, November 2004
4. The lounge of a former sanitorium. Sludyanka. Eastern Siberia, November 2004
5. Yevgeny Chavkin at his school graduation. Ulyanovsk. Volga, June 2005
6. A Christmas tree and advertising billboard. Murmansk. Northwestern Region, January 2005
7. Abandoned warship in the Kola Bay. Murmansk. Northwestern Region, January 2005
8. Port officials. Vladivostok. Far East Russia, October 2004
9. Apartment blocks reflected in water. Sakhalin Island. Far East Russia, October 2004
10. Elena and Vera Karnova. Magadan. Far East Russia, August 2004
11. Zhenya and his pregnant fiancée, Mia. Yakutsk. Eastern Siberia, November 2004
12. Russian banya. Yekaterinburg. Urals, May 2005
13. Camping with Sasha and Paval. Kamchatka Peninsula. Far East Russia, October 2004
14. Meat market, Pyatigorsk. Northern Caucasus. April 2005
15. Friends keep warm by the eternal flame. St Petersburg. Northwestern Region, December 2004
16. Ballroom dancers, Nikita and Rufina. Omsk. Western Siberia, May 2005
17. Police road safety sign. Magadan. Far East Russia, August 2004
18. Victory Day picnic. Yekaterinburg. Urals, May 2005
Regards,
