Description

Many people would tell you, looking at these photographs by Anastasia Tsayder, that what they’re   looking at are quintessentially post-Soviet, Eastern European images.

They might enjoy them as documents of a unique and unusual civilisation that has fallen into desuetude; conversely, or at the    same time they might see them as evidence of the awful state of Homo Sovieticus, a species apparently incapable of caring for its own environment, and left bewildered by the refusal of the state to continue providing this care. Looking out of my window in a small block of council flats in a pleasant part of London, I find both reactions a little puzzling.

The environment documented here — a landscape of optimistic but standardised post-war housing, whose green spaces have been overtaken by nature, is almost exactly what I can see when I look from the walkways of my block. from the book’s afterword by Owen Hatherley

Limited edition of 350 copies

Supported by Garage Museum of Contemporary Art and State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia

Hard cover / 212×295 mm / 196 pages
Published by Talka in association with Orbita
ISBN 978-9934-591-15-0

2021