Edition 2010

Ivan Mikhailov

Megalopolis

Moscow is a vast city of busy people, traffic jams, a noisy subway, aggres- sive advertising, street lights, expensive shop windows and quiet loneliness. Like a huge teeming anthill where the inhabitants carry out their everyday functions like cogs in a machine.
The subjects of my photographs are young people who left the provinces and moved to the capital for diverse reasons. For them that means new surroundings, a different rhythm and different rules of behaviour. Some feel in their element here, others are oppressed and overwhelmed by the megalopolis. I met them and put the same questions I ask myself. What do they want from the city? What are their thoughts and dreams, what do they hope for, how do they feel in this environment?
Olga Sviblova, exhibition curator
Exhibition organised by the Moscow House of Photography as part of the Russia year in France.
Exhibition venue: Abbaye de Montmajour.
Moscow is a vast city of busy people, traffic jams, a noisy subway, aggressive advertising, street lights, expensive shop windows and quiet loneliness. Like a huge teeming anthill where the inhabitants carry out their everyday functions like cogs in a machine. The subjects of my photographs are young people who left the provinces and moved to the capital for diverse reasons. For them that means new surroundings, a different rhythm and different rules of behaviour. Some feel in their element here, others are oppressed and overwhelmed by the megalopolis. I met them and put the same questions I ask myself. What do they want from the city? What are their thoughts and dreams, what do they hope for, how do they feel in this environment?

Olga Sviblova, exhibition curator

Exhibition organised by the Moscow House of Photography as part of the Russia year in France.
Exhibition venue: Abbaye de Montmajour.

  • Institutional partners

    • République Française
    • Région Provence Alpes Côté d'Azur
    • Département des Bouches du Rhône
    • Arles
    • Le Centre des monuments nationaux est heureux de soutenir les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles en accueillant des expositions dans l’abbaye de Montmajour
  • Main partners

    • Fondation LUMA
    • BMW
    • SNCF
    • Kering
  • Media partners

    • Arte
    • Lci
    • Konbini
    • Le Point
    • Madame Figaro
    • France Culture