Photography lives longer than human memory.
Introduction
Shifting sensibilities of space and solitude flow through the work of the Russian photographer Ivan Mikhaylov like a stream of consciousness. The meanings and associations, the insights and emotions borne by these two concepts eddy back and forth through his photographic series, negotiating a course between the would-be objectivity of documentary and the introspective subjectivity of art.
His photographs are quiet meditations on the confluence of memory and experience, isolation and connection. They ask us to view the world through his eyes; not simply to see what was there, but open to the cross currents of affect and implication that ripple beneath the surface. The spaces he explores are as much internal as in the world: nostalgia for the now-forgotten mid-century race into outer space, the sense of opportunity and alienation aroused by the metropolis, environments of neglect as metaphors of loneliness. While conceived discretely, his creative projects prove permeable; ideas and feelings seep from one to another as he discovers the redemptive potential of landscape itself to transform space into place and loneliness into restorative solitude.
Alasdair Foster
© Ivan Mikhaylov – from the series ‘Trees’ 2012
Interview
What draws you to photography as a medium of creative expression?
For me, photography is an ideal tool for exploring reality, for self-discovery. While I can see the way in which it functions in society has changed over the past twenty years, the documentary side remains important to me. I work on long-term projects; several I have been shooting for over a decade. Indeed, I think it is quite possible for a single project to last a lifetime.
© Ivan Mikhaylov – from the series ‘Children’s Playgrounds’ 2010
How did your series ‘Children’s Playgrounds’ begin?
There came a point, as an adult, when I realised that I had almost no memory of my childhood. It felt as if this period of my life was hidden deep within me. I started visiting the places where I grew up, photographing the old playgrounds where I noticed that there were a lot of rockets in various shapes and sizes, often functioning as a slide or other piece of recreational equipment. In the Soviet era, the idea of conquering space had permeated all spheres: cinema, literature, architecture, and even the world of childhood – especially after Yuri Gagarin became the first person to travel into outer space. In all, I found and photographed more than thirty playground rockets in my hometown of Cheboksary.
How did you approach the project aesthetically?
This is both a nostalgic personal story and an attempt to capture a spirit of the past. I shot at night to enhance the feeling of outer space, as if these rockets were standing at the cosmodrome ready for take-off. All this set against a background of everyday life.
I made this series fourteen years ago. When I returned to these playgrounds some years later, the rockets were no longer there. They had become rusty, neglected, and were subsequently scrapped. The romantic notion of space exploration and life on other planets was over. But I am glad that I took the time to document them. Photography lives longer than human memory.
This idea of the cosmic is captured in more substantial form in your series ‘Traces of Extraterrestrial Civilizations’.
This series was inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. In 2011, I moved to Moscow where the sense of space seemed to me boundless. After living in the small provincial city of Cheboksary, the noisy, crowded metropolis overwhelmed me. I tried to leave the house only in the evening, travelling to distant metro stations to explore the new residential districts on the outskirts of the city. I looked for urban structures that I thought looked like spacecraft or suggested traces of an extraterrestrial civilisation: ventilation pipes, underground entrances, modernist architectural forms…
You made this work in Moscow and in Paris. Did you find cultural differences between the two cities in the way this extraterrestrial sensibility was expressed architecturally?
The two cities are different. Paris has more sophisticated modern architecture, especially in some neighbourhoods where you can feel the influence of space-age sensibilities on buildings and modernist sculptures. But I think these two projects can be shown together as one story: that sense of outer space is found the outskirts of both big cities.
© Ivan Mikhaylov – from the series ‘Traces of Extraterrestrial Civilisations’ 2013
Do you find that viewers respond differently to these two series depending on whether they are old enough to have lived through the excitement of the early space age?
I think so, especially in Russia. For older adults, the playgrounds are nostalgic; for the younger generation they have the exoticism of something that no longer exists. It was interesting to see how the exhibition was interpreted in other countries. At the opening in New York, people talked about the Cold War, the arms race, and the fight for supremacy in outer space. Many people saw the playground rockets not as spacecraft but as weapons… though this is not a meaning I would put on them. Place, context, and time can change the perception of this series and give birth to new meanings.
The series set in the suburbs is colder, alienated. I think it is more a story about loneliness and the emotional emptiness of the contemporary urban environment.
© Ivan Mikhaylov – from the series ‘Space for Solitude’ 2009
That sense is present, though in a starkly different context, in ‘Space for Solitude’.
I made this project in my hometown of Cheboksary. It’s a very quiet unhurried environment, where I found myself diving deep into my thoughts and feelings in a way that became overwhelming. So, I started to develop a project about loneliness as a way to cope with these feelings. I wandered around dark, abandoned places and documented them as a reflection of how I felt. Later, I began shooting portraits of my friends, relatives, and acquaintances. I talked with them about loneliness, how they experienced it, what it meant to them. Through dialogue and exploration of this feeling in others, I tried to understand myself. It was a kind of therapy.
And, yes, I think that this feeling of loneliness also seeps into my work set in playgrounds and on the outskirts of cities.
© Ivan Mikhaylov – from the series ‘Space for Solitude’ 2009
How did you approach the portraiture?
During the shoot we discussed the challenging topic of loneliness. It was important for me to immerse them in this idea while I made the portrait. Perhaps I was looking for a reflection of my feelings in them, with this project being a self-portrait of sorts. When it was finished, I came to realise that loneliness is a very important state. There is no need to run away from it, to try to drown it out. It is a time when you are alone with yourself, when you can hear your inner voice, face your fears and doubts. And until you do that, those fears and doubts will never go away.
How did you decide which environmental image to pair with each portrait?
I shot portraits and environmental images separately over a period of about two years. When I had photographed more than thirty people and began selecting images, I realised that something was missing. The answer came almost by accident. I had prints of these portraits and the moody landscapes on the table together. And some of them matched each other perfectly, reinforcing the story. I started building diptychs that interacted to suggest a deeper story and new meanings.
© Ivan Mikhaylov – from the series ‘Space for Solitude’ 2009
These environmental images are not directly connected to the people in the portraits, rather it is a more associative connection, an invented story. But through fiction one can tell the truth. And this is my truth.
How has this work changed the way you perceive solitude?
It used to seem to me that being alone was a sign of social failure, that you can’t build relationships. Now I have friends who are comfortable living alone. Solitude is about being comfortable with yourself. You can feel lonely even if you’ve lived with a partner for many years. And I think it is important to be alone sometimes, to go to the riverbank or to the forest, to switch off the phone. Today we are under a constant pressure of information, it stops us hearing our inner voice.
[Left] © Ivan Mikhaylov ‘Oleg Volkov, 23 years old. Marketing communications. (One year in Moscow)’ 2008 from the series ‘Megapolis’
“Moscow’s a city of adventurers. Here you can put your craziest ideas in action. Why did I leave? I felt restricted and bored in a small town. Couldn’t see any development or perspectives for myself. But here it’s dynamic, everything depends on you alone. Any path is open. You don’t have an excuse.”
[Right] © Ivan Mikhaylov ‘Irina Tsvetkova, 30 years old. Internet project director. (Six months in Moscow)’ 2008 from the series ‘Megapolis’
“For me Moscow’s a new, uncomfortable, and unfamiliar place. Don’t have time to get to know it. All my free time is spent at work. It’s a very lazy city, despite the bustle. I don’t think I’ll stay long. I’m a homebody.”
‘Megapolis’ brings us back to the big city. How did the project begin and who are the young people pictured here?
After graduating, many of my acquaintances left the province and moved to Moscow seeking more opportunities for development, higher salaries. I decided to make a project about how they felt once they were there.
I connected with my peers through social media and invited them to take part in the project. I spent two months in Moscow where I photographed them and briefly interviewed them about their reasons for moving, how they found living in this huge city, how they were adapting to the new environment. I placed these texts alongside the portraits to add depth and meaning to the images.
[Left] © Ivan Mikhaylov ‘Vova Stepanov, 31 years old. IT specialist. (Eight years in Moscow)’ 2008 from the series ‘Megapolis’
“I came here to realise my potential. It’s been mostly ups and downs so far. I’m not too enthusiastic about this city. It’s just a big, noisy city with lots of people. It’s not my place, it’s strange to me. I think it depresses me. I’ve got used to it, got acclimatised. I don’t pay much attention to the bustle. I live in my own world.”
[Right] © Ivan Mikhaylov ‘Yevgenia Maximova, 23 years old. TV journalist. (One year in Moscow)’ 2008 from the series ‘Megapolis’
“I came to Moscow to get ahead in my profession, and if my ideas and projects were illusions before, now I can realise them. I enjoy that most of all. The first day after arriving in Moscow I looked at everything wide-eyed. The lights of the city at night were impressive, and all the beautiful cars, all different.”
Why do you have them each wrapped in a blanket?
An accident played a role here. I was visiting a friend I planned to photograph for this project. I spilled tea on a red blanket and it was hung to dry on the balcony.
Later, when we were on the balcony, it was cold outside and my friend wrapped himself in this blanket. It was like an epiphany. I realised this was the perfect symbol: a man wrapped in a homemade blanket, protected, like a cocoon. A balcony is a place where a person is at home, but at the same time they can feel immersed in the city below.
© Ivan Mikhaylov – from the series ‘Trees’ 2012
Blankets return in your series ‘Trees’, this time situated back in the countryside. What sparked the concept for this series?
I was on an art residency in Düsseldorf. The city has a lot of parks with beautiful big trees, which I started to photograph, exploring how they interact with the urban environment. One night I found a beautiful tree on the banks of the Rhine. It had big wide branches that you could lie on comfortably. I lay out on a branch looking at the stars and felt the tree’s energy rising from the roots up the trunk to the tips of the leaves. It was a new sensation, exciting. I felt part of something bigger, part of an ecosystem. Living in the urban space people lose this connection. Somewhere deep inside there is the accumulated experience of centuries of natural life. And I feel increasingly disconnected from this experience.
I invited my friends to experience this close interaction with nature for themselves. I wrapped tree and person in a blanket; then asked them to close their eyes and feel the tree as a living organism. Many said that they felt better after this embrace. Indeed, I think this has therapeutic potential. After I returned to Russia, I continued to shoot this project with my friends.
For me, this project is a call to be more attentive to the environment in which we live.
© Ivan Mikhaylov – from the series ‘Volga’ 2021
For the past ten years you have been making a series of work along the Volga River near where you live. What do you want to capture in this work?
The Volga has always been a very important place for me. I feel balanced and fulfilled on its banks. In the city, I feel constantly stressed and dissatisfied with myself, as if I am continually failing to get something done. I come to the Volga to be in silence, alone with my thoughts. I have made all the most important decisions in my life beside this river. For me, it has a sense of home, a place where I live, a place of connection with my roots. I have been studying the river’s shoreline for over twelve years, documenting the changing seasons and the traces of human interaction.
A river is in constant motion, a flow, and the largest cities in my region are all built on the Volga. As I continue the project, I have started travelling to other cities and regions, studying the river and its banks at various points along its length. The Volga is a very big river that flows through half the country. It connects cities, unites people, and influences their lives. Maybe this is a project I will pursue for the rest of my life.
[Left] © Ivan Mikhaylov ‘Volga River, Cheboksary’ Spring 2023 from the series ‘Volga’
[Right] © Ivan Mikhaylov ‘House with a perfect view from the window’ November 2021 from the series ‘Volga’
Why did you choose to shoot in winter when no-one is around and snow covers much of the detail of the place?
I photograph the Volga all year round. But winter is a special time. Everything comes to a standstill, covered in white. The river freezes and you can cross over to the opposite bank. For a time, I was making portraits on the Volga and photographing the lives of people along the river. Covid and the global lockdown was a turning point. An invisible deadly disease. We sat at home for weeks, only going out for groceries. Any stranger wearing a mask looked like a threat. I think it had a deep effect on people’s relationships. I almost stopped taking pictures of people – it became difficult for me to approach a stranger and ask permission to photograph them. Maybe this is one of the reasons why I am more attracted to the deserted winter riverscapes. I feel safe in them with their contemplative, meditative silence.
In making the bodies of work discussed here, what have you learnt about yourself personally that you did not previously understand?
When I first read your questions my mind went blank. It took two weeks before I could begin to work out my answers. But when I started to remember and write about the projects – projects that I shot ten or fifteen years ago – it was as if I relived them all over again…
Photography for me is like a time machine. When you look at an image you’ve made, the smallest details of that moment are called once more to mind. What photography teaches me is that everything in this world is temporary, everything changes. And a photograph lives longer than a memory.
© Ivan Mikhaylov ‘View of the city of Cheboksary, left bank of the Volga’ 2020 from the series ‘Volga’
Biographical Notes
Ivan Mikhailov was born in 1981 in Novocheboksarsk, USSR. He received a bachelor’s degree in fine art and drawing from the Chuvash State Pedagogical University, Russia (2003) and studied at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2013–14). His work has featured in eleven solo and twenty-two group exhibitions in Russia and, internationally, in China, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Türkiye, and the USA. His photographs are held in a number of public and private collections including the Multimedia Art Museum in Moscow, the Russian Museum of Photography in Nizhny Novgorod, and the National Museum of Chuvashia. He lives and works in Cheboksary.
This interview is a Talking Pictures original.