SEVEN ROOMS
BY WALL DONE, 09/02/2012
The plan was pretty straightforward. To go to Russia and create a broad and complex story describing the condition of the contemporary country with all its little things and most importantly, the whole generation of young, troubled people in the middle of transformation. After three years of work he realized that the task might be little bit more demanding than he initially expected. Instead of trying to comprehend the problem with all its nuances, he focused on everyday lives of - as he described - usual residents. I'm glad he did.
A short excerpt by Liza Faktor:
Why does a photographer, or anyone with an ability to create narrative, gets drawn to a certain geographical territory to the point that he spends years in and out and most of his income to look at it at a close proximity? The sense of belonging, probably?
He doesn't have to like it or even come to understand the place, but he has to love it and all that comes with it: its people, food, drunkenness, taxi music and landscape.
Rafal Milach has been haunted by Russia and its 7 people. He spent six years with those people in 3 cities: Moscow, Yekaterinburg and Krasnoyarsk. In their 30s, they are intermediates between the ineradicable Soviet mentality and the increasingly anxious Russian mind of today.
Milach's search is the kind which is almost impossible to visualize. And yet, what he has here, in this book, is a fascinating and subtle journey into the loss of direction, into the sad and beautiful connection with our country.
You would be surprised that in all the richness of the Russian language, where there is a separate word for everything, the word 'country' means both the territory and the government…
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The book was published by Kehrer Verlag, has 152 pages and 57 pictures. It has a killer design by Ania Nałęcka. All interviews were conducted by the author himself. Texts by Svetlana Alexievich. It is available in English and Russian and as a special, signed and numbered, limited edition of 100. Comes with a signed print of your choice!
All images © Rafał Milach
