Project Detail: The Edge of the World (Kola Peninsula)

Contest:

Women photographers exhibition 2016



Brand:

LuganoPhotoDays



Author:

Alexandra Demenkova

 

Project Info

The Edge of the World (Kola Peninsula)

Kola Peninsula is one of the edges of the world. It is the land of lakes and rivers, of taiga and tundra. It is the land of Sami people, reindeer breeders and fishermen. It is the land of people who live far away from the world and its vanity.

Divided by water or land they live on islands and peninsulas, on isolated farmsteads in the woods or in abandoned villages. They can be former reindeer breeders who don’t want to go back to live in settlements and towns after they retire or the inhabitants of a remote village Ivanovka that was relocated in the 1970s according to the program of liquidation of unpromising villages and was abandoned for more than 20 years until two of its former inhabitants came back to live there in the end of the 1990s.

I wanted to see how people live on peninsula and to document their courage face to face with the solitude and the forces of nature. This series of photographs is also about the attachment to one’s land and roots.

I hope this work would become a part of a major project The Perimeter of Russia.

Kola Peninsula, Murmansk Region, Russia. Ongoing project.

Photos