Relocations10 archival prints, 90x60
2020
During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan 1979-1989, on the one hand, there was a constant flow of contraband to the Soviet Union, ranging from weapons and drugs to gold and precious stones, organized by Soviet military forces. On the other hand, it was almost impossible to bring out photographs depicting that war from the Soviet side. Twenty-year-old minesweeper Vladislav Tamarov, an amateur photographer, covertlycaptured his life during the war in Afghanistan and meticulously documented all the places of military operations in which he participated but couldn’t photograph. Based on his descriptions of locations and military topographic maps, I reconstructed digital landscapes that Tamarov could have visited but couldn’t preserve in photographs.