Ksenia Yurkova Biography

He is about people who consciously left civilization and became hermits. It was important for me to find those who cut themselves off from the stream of information of the modern world and remained for a long time living alone with them. I began to take off the communities living outside the civilization, but then I realized that the experience of lone hermits is more interesting and sharper.

Most of the time they took search and the road. I contacted almost all regional newspapers of Russia and Ukraine, searched for information on the Internet, called up local administrations, forestry and reserves. It is enough to find out the nearest settlement, where I found people who prompted the road to the hermit. It happens that they go out of the forest to the nearest village to exchange the products obtained in nature or products.

Sometimes, when I was not satisfied with the frames made, or when I lost the films, I had to return to the same person two to three times. People did not always make contact, had to make a lot of unnecessary movements. I wanted to correlate myself with these people, to feel what the difference is between us. I was always drawn to nature, there it is easier for me to feel the present, as I am.

The modern world is full of information that is continuously enveloping a person. It was necessary to find out how much you can get rid of it, and is there anything behind it, how close it is to come to your "I". At least once a year I try to leave for a while and stay alone in nature in order to look at my life from the side and drop the accumulated burden of extra information.

I do not want to go to hermits, although I do not like a modern society or the path that it goes. I am trying to analyze my internal conflict with him through the photo. I work with a photo about my favorite authors, but most of the principles of approach to work I draw from the cinema. Robert Bresson taught me the minimalization of funds in artistic techniques, creating understatement, and attention to details.

Tarkovsky is my ideal image of the artist. His philosophy and attitude to art are close to me. His cinema is amazing each time and inspires new ideas. More Michael Hanek. Alec Sot was earlier than one of his favorite authors, he undoubtedly had an influence on me from the point of view of the visual language, but now I do not feel a connection with him.

She reminded me of a modern society of journalism and the World Press Photo I do not consider my work to be journalistic. And I myself do not consider myself a journalist, but I can imagine my work in this territory. I am an artist working with documentary photography. My project is my personal initiative, it was important for me to live this experience and understand first of all. I started my career as a news photographer in one of the major Moscow newspapers, but over time I was disappointed in the profession of a photo core.

You are forced to show the world the way it wants to show its editors. You just become part of the propagandist machine. Now the most important thing is for me - this is my author's project. Everything else should work for him. For example, you can work out or get to the right place thanks to a commercial order. Journalism and art photography are now often intersecting.

Photography is not able to objectively reflect reality, it is able to convey only the subjective vision of the author, which can touch you or not. I perceive the photograph as a symbol pulled out of reality, and not as part of it. WPP illuminates current events in the world, I cover what is important to myself. It is great that these relevance coincided. What is relevant for me may not be relevant for another.

Although it is important that what you do is important to yourself. A sincere work in itself will reflect the time in which it was done. For me, photography is a tool through which I try to correlate myself with the outside world, to conduct a dialogue with it, but not a means to display what is happening. WPP is changing with the photo. Now you will not surprise anyone with just a beautiful picture or series; The most important thing in the photograph becomes its imagery, what is outside the image.

Photo journalism is in the transition of the period. When thousands of images are made every minute in the world, and everyone has a camera in his pocket, it becomes more and more difficult for it to perform a news function and not fall under the cliches of already made similar pictures. I hope this will lead to a deeper and author’s photograph. About photo education, I am very grateful to the Rodchenko school for creating an environment for creativity.

For young authors, support and communication with like -minded people is important. If you work with any medium, you must carefully study it, know its history and various directions, for this you can use the Internet or resemble lectures. As for the work on his work, here education can only help cut off the excess and narrow his statement; If a person has nothing to say, then he will not be able to say this.

There are enough places in Russia where you can go to study.The main thing is to understand what you want to get from this education. The problem is that many do not know this. About the last project now I am preparing my photo book "Escape" for the publication, its presentation will be at Vienna Photo Book Festival in July. I also work on the next big project “Restricted Area” on the topic of national identity.

I travel around my country in search of places that used to have a cultural, strategic or scientific significance, and now for various reasons were abandoned or forgotten. About the artist, the artist must be a fanatic, ascetic for the sake of creativity. To pose an artistic idea and overcome the standing obstacles on the way to its implementation. I never wanted to leave a photo.

Moreover, I think that I found the perfect medium. I am looking for new languages ​​of the narrative, for me a photograph is rather a symbol than just a carrier of visual information. The image that is behind the image has become more important to me more than the image itself. To be continued.