“Skvoz” is a project for collecting, studying and distributing Soviet private slide photography. It was conceived by St. Petersburg photographer Mikhail (at his request, we do not disclose his last name).
Mikhail has been collecting and classifying Soviet photography for eight years, and he first noticed slides six years ago. That was when he got his hands on the first archive box.
— The slides showed Soviet citizens traveling to Africa. It seemed to me a potentially interesting territory for collecting and research. Over the course of a couple of years, I had two large archives: one related to Soviet shipping, the second with 900 images of cacti. And I got involved in collecting more professionally — I mostly find slides at flea markets, — Mikhail told Bumaga.
The slides also resonated with his family’s experience. The photographer’s parents shot a little on slide film, and he found three boxes of them. Mikhail remembered his father’s collection of slides of foreign rock performers from his childhood, which probably influenced his son’s interest in music.
According to the photographer, he searches for and digitizes slides alone. Over six years, he managed to collect regarding 80 thousand images. This spring, Mikhail launched a website and an Instagram account, where he began publishing the collection.
The author of the project believes that slide private photography is an unusual view of life in the USSR. In slides, it is given in color and is not subject to censorship or propaganda, as was the case with photographs in magazines. The photographer told Bumaga that he plans to establish streaming digitization. According to his calculations, to begin with, it is necessary to scan another 10-20 thousand slides so that the logic of the collection is visible and to get an idea of the phenomenon as a whole. In addition, there is a plan to publish a book and organize an exhibition regarding slides.
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2024-07-08 09:57:53
