"Home Is a Poem" consists of
a video (14’10”) and
5 framed diptych portraits, 90 cm x 45 cm each.

Poet Anna Akhmatova, who wrote about the lives of people in St. Petersburg, Petrograd and Leningrad, died in 1966. Today a group of women guard and act as guides at her home on the Liteyny Prospect. I was interested to learn more about these women. I asked them if I could visit their homes and take their portrait photographs. My approach was conceptual. Instead of portraying a historical person, I wanted to concentrate on living ones. Instead of portraying an object, I wanted to focus on what’s human.

I photographed portraits of five women of different ages at their homes in Bolsevikov, Novozerskaja, Prospekt Veteranov, Kupzina and on Liteyny Prospect. I also asked women to show me around their apartments, on video camera, as if they were guiding me around a museum. We only met for the first time in the presence of the camera, and this is captured on the video: it offers a glimpse of each woman’s personality.

The video reflects the conceptual nature of the project. Visually it is akin to a home video: it has been shot hand-held and with an extra microphone. The material selected and edited for the video is a collage of various narrative styles: a guided tour, a performance, an interpretation and a monologue.

The photo portraits use the form of a traditional diptych portrait. I chose the form in order to contrast the two, often dissimilar, portraits of the same person.

Portraits::

Diptych of Jelena Romanovna Chigvintzva
From the series ”Home Is a Poem”
2007
Size 45,5 cm x 90 cm.
Chromogenic Print

Diptych of Galina Mihailovna Mishina
From the series ”Home Is a Poem”
2007
Size 45,5x90 cm.
Chromogenic Print

Diptych of Lydia Mikhailovna Beznosova
From the series ”Home Is a Poem”
2007
Size 45,5x90 cm.
Chromogenic Print

Diptych of Svetlana Bobkova
From the series ”Home Is a Poem”
2007
Size 45,5x90 cm.
Chromogenic Print

Diptych of Lilya Lebedeva
From the series ”Home Is a Poem”
2007
Size 45,5x90 cm.
Chromogenic Print

Video:

Home Is a Poem (Short Version)
Format: DVD pal
Year: 2007
Sound: Mono
Length: 14min