EMMANUELLE BAYART

fr / en

METROPOLITAN OF MOSCOW V.I. LENIN OF THE ORDER OF THE RED FLAG, 2010

The Moscow metro was predominantly intended as an ideological device and the architecture reflects the intention without doubt. Once you enter into the subway, you discover mosaics dedicated to the communist ideologists, painted polychrome stained glasses, immense lusters, panels of mosaics, notable examples of the socialist realism art. In the stations, everything is representation and the human is being dominated by the architecture. My objective was to put back the human into the center and to inverse the logic of historical domination by ideology. The reality now isn't the same than when the subway was build, only an ideological and confusing part persists. I decided to take portraits of Russian young people from 20 to 25 years old, dressed in white T-shirt, in front of the most significant elements of representation of the oldest and central stations. These young people are students or just entered the professional life. This series is a reflection on the insidious in the relation between public and private in the communist ideology. There is no clear boundary anymore of who dominates who. The young people in these pictures remind us to think about our place in the plank of time and about what we have in front of us.