DUSHANBE, July 29, 2014, Asia-Plus – A photo exhibition telling life of Pamiris has opened in Moscow.
An exhibition of works by Russia graphic designer Ksenia Diodorova opened at the Pioner (Pioneer) Cinema in Moscow on July 26 and it runs through August 15. Thirty-three photographs have been exhibited.
In an interview with Radio Liberty, Ksenia Diodorova said on July 11 that she is troubled by the deep-seated hostility toward migrant workers in her country.
Her photo essay “In The Cold,” shot in both Russia and Tajikistan”s Gorno-Badakhshan province, aims to dispel some of the misconceptions held about migrants from Tajikistan.
She, in particular, noted that her initial idea was to shoot a series of portraits of migrant workers, women, to show female migrant workers not as cashiers but as beautiful women.
“I was looking for a way to shine a light on labor migration from a different perspective because I find people”s attitudes toward labor migrants deeply troubling,” Ksenia said.
“I had also long wanted to work on the theme of isolation, when a village high up in the mountains is cut off from the world in winter and people there live with a completely different conception of time, one that is totally foreign to city dwellers. Then I met with an anthropologist from Pamir who got me interested in that region. So these three ideas merged into this project, “In The Cold,” which is about the parents of migrant workers who live in the mountains.”
She spent a month in Tajikistan traveling from village to village in the Bartang valley. Ksenia reportedly visited five or six villages and lived several days at a time with different families.
“In a sense yes, it is a lost world. But I wouldn”t say that life there is oppressive,” said Ksenia. “From a Western point of view of progress, of course people there lag behind. At first, my project was titled “Lost In The Cold,” but I eventually dropped the word “lost.” The people there aren”t lost, they just live differently.”
On the name of her essay, she said that it was a metaphor. “I tell a double story, the first part of which is shot in Pamir and the second in Russia. Those in Pamir live in climatic coldness, while their relatives in Russia live in social coldness.”
