More4 Amber Season

Exhibition

Title: The Russians

Dana Kyndrova
(Photographer)

Exhibits: 19 (show all)

An exploration by the Czech photographer taken before and after the collapse of the Eastern bloc and the Soviet Union, 1980s and early 1990s. Dana Kyndrova was one of the photographers involved in the Crook international Photography Workshop, 1993...more »

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Exhibitions (show all)

The Russians

Dana Kyndrova (Photographer)

Original Side Gallery exhibition text, 1992:

The Russians have been the object of Czech photographer Dana Kyndrova’s interest for more then ten years. She graduated from the Charles University in Prague majoring in Russian history, language and literature, and kept returning to the former Soviet Union to pursue this testimony to a people that meant so much to the citizens of Eastern Europe.

Now that the occupying armies have departed, interest in ‘The Russian Question’ has changed:

It is said that to be a Russian is a fatal curse. That since time immemorial it means to be stigmatised with a peculiar inner sadness, being unhappy at home as well as abroad. The Russian is an eternal runner searching for the fulfilment of unrealisable desires.

So wrote one Czech critic of this issue. Dana Kyndrova’s work spans both the Soviet period, where she declared her freedom to critically examine social control, crowd manipulation and other aspects of the regime, and the period of Russian withdrawal from her own country, and the collapse of the communist regime. Her unfolding story is one of tragedy for a people once despised in the wake of the 1968 invasion, now rejected by those who are increasingly identifying with the West.