Authors

Victoria Musvik¹;  ¹ University of Oxford, UK

Discussion

Perestroika is often seen as the epoch that gave new freedom to the arts. Interestingly however, already in the mid-1970s Soviet amateur photography movement saw a sudden increase in creativity. There was an upsurge of interest in various genres, from the unmanipulated documentary to various art experiments. These semi-official and independent practitioners were particularly interested in re-gaining access to the enclosed spaces. Their combined efforts made a significant contribution to the establishment of a parallel public sphere. In this process, alternative photographic networks that existed outside of Moscow and Leningrad played an important role. One can even aver that the most creative experiments were made in local and non-central spaces where the new movement was crystallising.
It was only after 1985 that the whole range of these images became available to bigger audiences. Paradoxically, in the Russian republic perestroika which initially opened up the field and tantalised these groups with a promise of even more prominence, did not have enough energy for even maintaining their existence. Currently, unlike in some other post-Soviet countries where the situation is somewhat different, Russian photographic archives of the period are tremendously understudied and many of the practitioners are forgotten. The aim of this paper is to ask if the way that these local photography groups fell into oblivion should be analysed from the decolonial research perspective.