A journey in the coldest region of Russia • SACHA by Alexis Pazoumian
SACHA by Alexis Pazoumian
Entirely built on permafrost, Yakutsk is considered the coldest city in the world: located in the far north-east of Russia, here in winter the temperature drops to -60 ºC and in summer it reaches more than 30°. With such a temperature variation, it is fundamental to maintain the stability of the ground, otherwise the ice would melt and buildings, roads and everything is on the top of the ground would collapse in the literal sense of the term.
In addition to being a city with extreme climatic conditions, Yakutsk is also known as “the diamond hearth of Russia”, the place from which a quarter of the world’s diamonds of high-quality is extracted. That’s why the city is a very wealthy one and it attracts migrants from areas such as Armenia and Uzbekistan.
Alexis Pazoumian, a French-Armenian photographer and director based in Paris, driven by a family history but also by the curiosity to better understand how life is organised in such extreme conditions, decided to go there in order to capture in images the everyday life.
After a period working as a French teacher, he discovered the existence of a reindeer herding community, the Evenes. Living at their side for several months, cut off from everything in the middle of nothing, Alexis met Sacha, a solitary man raising his herd of a thousand reindeer in search of freedom and total independence.
His experience in the north of Russia results now in a book called indeed “Sacha”, recounting the author’s journey from Yakutsk, along the infamous Gulag Trail, to his ultimate encounter with the man living alone in the middle of the Tundra.
Designed as a travel diary, the book guides us on a photographic odyssey across the far reaches of the world’s coldest region, Yakutia, providing a firsthand account of the climate crisis: Russia indeed is estimated to be warming up three times faster than the rest of the planet.
The book, edited by André Frère Editions, will be launched at Galerie Just Jaeckin on February 27th, 2020. For the occasion there will be also be an exhibition of the project (until 21st March).
Here our Q&A with the author, Alexis Pazoumian.
How did you work on the book?
I worked in collaboration with the graphic design studio Studio Fables and in particular with Paul-Henri Schaedelin who is specialized in typography. We had already collaborated together in the past for my first book “Faubourg Treme”. They are really talented, we started working on the book in May 2019. First of all we tried to find a link between the story of my project and the design in order to find elements of coherent design. For this project we have, for example, decided on a cover that takes on the colors of the furs of our main character Sacha. Also the typography of the title takes up the harshness of the climate and the character of Sacha, massive and imposing.
Why did you decide to make a book?
I prefer the book because I like to work on long-term projects and therefore it is difficult to detail such a long and ambitious project in an exhibition with few pictures. Indeed in “Sacha” there are 42 photos and 15 pages of texts, so I was able to really express myself to the maximum in order to transmit to the spectators the story as I saw it.
But, as you know, the release of my books is always accompanied by an exhibition, I think it is important to see the photos in larger formats also.
In your project images and text strongly related each other. Do you think that images can stand alone?
Indeed in the center of the book there are 15 pages of texts on black paper written like a travel diary which represents my first trip in 2017. During my stay with Sacha I immediately described what I saw, so much what I lived by their side was special. I was convinced that it was necessary to include text to fully understand the situation, their life, my experience so that the spectators could identify themselves, immerse themselves in my story in order to realize the problems they are facing.
Yes, these images could live without text but it would be really a shame and it was not my original intention. Documentary pictures is not static images that convey emotions like painting. For my part, you have to understand the context in order to immerse yourself in the story which allows you to better appreciate the photos.
This is the story of a faraway place, geographically but also culturally distant from us. Why did you choose to travel far away and document an everyday life so different from yours?
I have always loved traveling, discovering other populations. I am very curious by nature, so yes, actually I am attracted to remote areas.
If Russia has always appealed to me, it’s no doubt because of my family history. My grandfather, Richard Jeranian, was a painter, and he was one of the first artists of his generation to go to Moscow in 1957, before exhibiting his work in Novosibirsk, Siberia, in 1980. Tales of his travels through this country that is as distant as it is strange filled my childhood, and stirred in me a desire to discover it for myself.
In the early 2000s, members of a distant branch of my family emigrated to Siberia to escape the misery that was affecting Armenia at the time. They settled in Yakutsk, like many other minorities, including the Kyrgyz and the Uzbek. Yakutia is a very rich region; the land is full of gold, oil and coal, and it’s also the world’s largest producer of diamonds.
Learning that I had family there, I naturally decided to go to Yakutsk. Now I'm interested in more personal topics personal in France, I’m developing two short films as well as a more personal photographic project in my country of origin Armenia.
In your opinion, how will climate change affect the everyday life of people you met?
Rising temperatures (4°C in the last forty years) have dramatic consequences for the lives of indigenous peoples and those of their animals. Nomadic herders don’t necessarily have all of the figures at their fingertips, but they are the first to observe these environmental changes.
The fluctuation between frost and mild spells, snow and rain, can cause an impenetrable layer of ice to form on the ground for the hungry reindeer. Ice melt takes place much earlier in the spring and lasts much later into the fall. This in turn has forced herders to modify their ancient migration routes, as it’s difficult for the reindeer to move through the snowless taiga. Rising temperatures also affect the taiga’s vegetation, which is the reindeers’ only source of food.
As a matter of fact, most nomadic tribes have seen their populations dwindle because of isolation and climate instability, which make working conditions increasingly difficult. Many herders would rather move to Yakutsk, where they can earn an honest living.
For a disciple of nature like Sacha, living in the city would amount to heresy. For this lover of freedom, city life would be nothing short of a prison sentence. And it’s this city life that’s inevitably leading the world, his world, to ruin. Sacha is deeply attached to his ancient ways, perhaps the unwitting representative of an endangered world.
Will there come a time when Sacha’s life and that of his reindeer will no longer be bearable? Will he be able to adapt to climate change for much longer? Over the course of his snow-covered odyssey through the Great North, Sacha attempts to find out who he really is. An age-old question, and undoubtedly the most difficult one to answer.
How do you conceive your role as a photographer?
Being of Armenian origin, all my childhood I heard my grandparents tell me about the Armenian genocide. That their parents had to flee "old Armenia" from their country, a country to which they were attached and they had to start all over again, start from scratch, without money, without speaking the language.
Today I am fortunate to have a double culture which brings me a lot of wealth. I think my story echoes with my subjects, I need to talk about injustices but also about communities. My work is oriented towards social documentaries, it is centered on communities living on the margins of society.
What did you learn from this project?
In such conditions, life is a never-ending struggle against the elements. Danger, Sacha’s intimate friend, is his most faithful companion. Fear of even the slightest injury is a reminder of the ubiquity of death, which won’t wait peacefully for old age, and remains ready to strike at any time.
Sacha has acquired ancestral knowledge that allows him to live in this environment so hostile to man, which he knows how to tame. Yet he also bears witness to his own powerlessness in the face of the slow and inexorable transformation wrought by climate change.
---
The book “Sacha”, edited by André Frère Editions, will be available in bookstores in France at the end of February and by pre-order on the publisher's website.
from Articles https://ift.tt/2HZXdDe
Comments
Post a Comment