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Photographer
Irina Popova
Go Far Away and Hide It Under the Ground
Gomma Photography Grant 2016 Winners

Gomma Photography Grant 2016

Go Far Away and Hide It Under the Ground

Photographer

Irina Popova

Go Far Away and Hide It Under the Ground

14 Oct, 2022

"Go Far Away and Hide It Under the Ground" is the second part of the project called “If You Have a Secret”. It is a book into which I put there all my soul, all my experiences, all my past and present. It's about me being a Russian - and trying to understand what means to carry a motherland within yourself. It consists of the photos from my photo archives from more than 10 years of being a photographer, travelling all over the country and basically taking photos whenever I can. It was a life transformed into the surface of the images. The text which accompany the book are the personal memories, sometimes funny, sometimes traumatic, but the ones which reflect the connection with the land – the experiences which form our souls. In the course of the work I understood that there is no such a thing as ideological, official patriotism. There are only those small personal things which form our identity. The interior of the kitchen in the parent’s house. The drunken man on the street whom you help to stand up and who tells you nice words. The book is called “If you have a Secret”. There is a continuation of this phrase - "Go far away and hide it under the ground”. The concept is based on the children’s game where you hide a treasure under the glass and bury it – in order to rediscover it on the next day… or many years later. In the second part of the project I decided to return to my “Secrets” and to revise them. To rediscover my connection with my land – after more than 7 years of living abroad, I will revisit Russia and find, if that modern, changed country resonates with my soul and something Russian in me. The design of the book will play with half-pages, folded pages, and texts hidden in between, in order to create a meta-photography, a storytelling in several layers. The first part of the book in 2014 book wasn't widely advertised. It had a very small edition - only 120 English and 64 Russian copies, supported by Art Geneve Fair, specially for the exhibition about Russia "My Joy", curated by Katia Krupennikova. It got sold out. Now I don't have a copy myself. The second part will have an improved design, but still retain the same spirit of raw honesty, searching for some feeling between pain and joy - something which is called "Motherland".

About the photographer

Irina Popova

Born in 1986 in Tver, Russia, Irina Popova is a documentary photographer and curator. A graduate of the Tver State University School of Journalism, Popova studied photography at FotoDepartament, St. Petersburg, in 2007. In 2008-2010, she studied documentary photography and mixed media at the Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia.Popova worked as a staff writer and photographer for Ogoniok Magazine in Moscow from 2008-2009. In 2010, she moved to the Netherlands, and was artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam from 2011-2012. In 2013, Popova co-founded the Dostoevsky Photography Society collective. In 2013-2014, she curated an exhibition FFABRU/Foreign Fotographers About Russia, as part of the Open Border Festival, Amsterdam; subsequently the exhibition toured to ten Russian cities.Irina Popova has participated in numerous exhibitions and photography festivals in Russia, Ukraine, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain, Burma, and Lisbon, including the Photoquai Biennale, Paris and the Noorderlicht and Breda Photo international festivals in the Netherlands. Her work has been published by Lenta.ru; Afisha Mir; Russian Reporter; Ogoniok; the Guardian; Geo International; the New York Times; Gup Magazine; and Lens Culture. Popova’s work is included in the collections of the Russian State Museum; Musée du Quai Branly, Paris; and the Rijksakademie Amsterdam.In 2014, Popova published the photo books Another Family and If You Have a Secret. She has received numerous awards and nominations, including Delphic Games of Russia (2006, 2007, 2008); Young Photographers of Russia (2008 and 2010); Best Photographer of Russia (2009); the UNICEF prize honorable mention (2009); Award of Fund of Development of Photojournalism, Russia (2009); and nomination for the Marie Claire Photo Award (2012). She teaches photography in Moscow at the Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia.