The project has been developed over a number of years, words and visuals are a product of accumulation. These faces have been living with us for many years, like some kind of distant relatives. Of most of them I knew nothing or very little, of some I had read pages, of others I was fed information, briefed on episodes of their lives, or outlined their personality – as one does flicking through the pages of an extended family album. I learnt their names and on the knowledge I picked up along the way – or lacked – I painted over their black and white silhouettes as to give them the bolder appearance and louder voice of an instinctive new narrative: the life story we give ourselves within the waves and knots of history, through the absorbing of our experiences, the hurricanes of love and loss, the bliss of friendship and art; all that excites us, all we endure. (FR 2011)
Please scroll down to read a brief note on each Storyboard.
|
1. Anna Akhmatova and Boris PasternakAnna Akhmatova: one of the best known of Russian poets. Akhmatova's work ranges from lyric poems to intricate and longer compositions such as Requiem (1935–40), her masterpiece about the Stalinist terror. In 1921, Akhmatova's former husband Nikolay Gumilyov was executed for his alleged role in an anti-Bolshevik conspiracy. Akhmatova narrowly escaped arrest, though her son Lev was imprisoned on numerous occasions, accused of counter-revolutionary activity. Boris Pasternak: A Nobel-prize winning poet and novelist and translator of Rilke, Goethe and Shakespeare. In Russia, Pasternak is most celebrated as a poet. His first collection of poems, My Sister Life, was written in 1917. In the West he is mainly known as the author of the epic novel Doctor Zhivago. |
2. Alexander Grin and Mikhail BulgakovAlexander Grin: writer of ‘romantic’ fiction usually set in Western European or ‘exotic’ locations that didn’t bear any direct reference to the Russia of the times. Some of his friends and admirers even thought his short stories were Russian translations of various foreign authors. They named his picturesque literary world ‘Grinlandia’. Mikhail Bulgakov: The author of Master and Margarita and several other novels, plays and collections of short stories. During the last seven years of his life he lived together with his second wife Elena Sergeyevna (though by many to be the model for Margarita). The staircase leading to their Moscow apartment was covered by graffiti inspired from various scenes of the Master and Margarita, before being over painted in 2005 by disgruntled neighbours. |
3. Andrei BelyAndrei Bely: novelist and poet associated with the Symbolist movement. Son of a mathematician, his novel Petersburg was mentioned by Vladimir Nabokov as one of his four favourite prose works. While living in Berlin in 1922 he published Glossolalia, ‘a poem about sound’, where he attempted to explore the origin of human language. His essay ‘Rhythm as Dialectic in the Bronze Horseman’ was mentioned by Nabokov in his novel The Gift. |
4. Alexander Blok and Vladislav HodashevichAlexander Blok: the most important Russian poet of the first two decades of the twentieth century usually associated with the symbolist movement. Often used colours mixed with various rhythmic patterns to evoke the variety of themes in his poems. Disillusioned by the social and political developments in post-revolution Russia, he stopped writing during the last three years of his life. Vladislav Hodashevich: Poet and, later on in his life, a prominent literary critic emigrated to Berlin in the early 1920’s. He published two important collections of poems: ‘Heavy Lyre’ and ‘European Night’. Was married to the writer Nina Berberova and strongly encouraged the first literary efforts of Vladimir Nabokov. |
5. Pavel Florensky and Varlam ShalamovPavel Florensky: theologian, poet, philosopher, inventor, mathematician … also known as 'Russia's Leonardo da Vinci'. Author of numerous works on a variety of subjects amongst whom the Inverted Perspective and The Pillar and Ground of Truth. In 1933 was imprisoned and in 1937 shot by the secret police in a wave of mass executions marking that period. Varlam Shalamov: Poet, writer and a Gulag survivor. His most famous work is ‘Kolyma Tales’, a series of short stories recording the daily life and routine in a Siberian prison camp. |
6. Oberiu groupOberiu group: Union for Real Art, founded in 1928 whose most prominent members were Daniil Kharms, Alexander Vvedensky, Nikolay Zabolotsky, Konstantin Vaghinov, Yakov Druske and Nikolay Oleynikov. They organised public readings, theatrical performances, circus-like stunts and today are considered the precursor of the theatre of the absurd. The painter Kazimir Malevich was associated with this group and strongly encouraged their work. |
7. Mikhail ZoshchenkoMikhail Zoshchenko: writer of supreme satirical stories dealing with the everyday petit bourgeois reality of the early Soviet times and written in masterly short, sharp and seemingly plain language. It is believed that during his life time his collections were sold in tens of millions of copies ranging from official editions to samizdat publications. |
8. Osip Mandelstam and Marina TsvetaevaOsip Mandelstam: one of the most prominent members of the Achmeist movement characterised by ‘neo-classical form of modernism with strong emphasis on the poetic craft and cultural continuity’. He published two important collections of his poems, the pre-revolutionary ‘Stone’ and post-revolutionary ‘Tristia’. Was exiled to Voronezh, where he wrote a considerable body of poems published posthumously as the Voronezh Notebook. Charged with counter-revolutionary activities, he died in a transit camp in Siberia. Marina Tsvetaeva: a lyrical poet who besides close links with a number of leading poets of her time such as Pasternak, Rilke and Akhmatova, developed her own specific poetic voice ranging from the deeply lyrical to the satirical. Lived a life of hardship, her daughter and her husband were arrested after their return to the Soviet Union in the late 1930’s that eventually led to her suicide in 1941. |
9. Isaac Babel and Andrei PlatonovIsaac Babel: short story writer, journalist and a scriptwriter, best known as the author of ‘Odessa Tales’ and ‘Red Cavalry’, both short-stories collections of which the latter was based on the Russia’s military campaign against Poland in the 1920 which he witnessed. Collaborated with Sergey Eisenstein on the script of Bezhin Meadow. Isaak Babel was arrested, tortured and shot during the Great Purge of the late 1930s. Andrei Platonov: a novelist and a short stories writer whose works include the novels ‘The Foundation Pit’ and ‘Chevengur’ and the novella ‘Soul’. Besides the numerous comparisons to the ‘traditional’ 19th century Russian novel, his writing is characterised by a unique and highly inventive literary language. In the 1930’s Platonov's son was arrested as a "terrorist" at the age of fifteen. After serving at a labor camp for a lengthy period of time he was discharged after being diagnosed with tuberculosis which Platonov himself contracted and succumbed to while nursing him. |
10. HylaeaHylaea was the most important Russian Futurist group, made out of Velimir Hlebnikov, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Aleksei Kruchenykh and David Burliuk. Their earlier works were mainly the linguistic experiments in sound symbolism and language creation known under the name Zaum. |
