Anton Sverdlov

Untitled

To walk around the city, lose your way, find yourself alone at the center… To look at the city and try to find signs of those who live there... In the last year I often found myself going into the urban space to learn about it through the traces and remnants left by its residents, be it an object, tossed out and then repurposed, an architectural element which has lost its functional significance, or a toy plane wedged between two windows like a collected butterfly in a glass box. All of these organize themselves randomly in the space, without intentions or planning, in intriguing compositions reminiscent of nature paintings. For me they signify the real life of the city, it even seems to breathe through them, to grow like a child developing its individual personality. The city was built on an ideology and a guiding theme, with logic and principles of organizing space. However, the intentions were abandoned and it continued to grow and develop according to the needs and actions of its inhabitants. For me, therefore, photographing the city is in fact documenting its residents’ traces.