We cannot wait for favors from Nature. To take them from it—that is our task.
Ivan Michurin
About the project
The book follows a long-term photographic project by Sputnik Photos entitled Lost Territories, which is dedicated to the former Soviet Union – territories of painful experience and unfinished transformations.
Short user manual animation explaining how the Lost Territories project works:
For several years, the photographers have documented the life and space of all the 15 countries born after the collapse of the former Soviet empire, exploring such topics as: propaganda in Georgia, veterans of the Georgian-Russian war, environment contaminated with uranium and nuclear waste, women veterans of the Great Patriotic War, borders between states, metaphysics of the dreams of former USSR citizens, long-lasting consequences of natural disasters, decline of the shipbuilding industry on the Ukrainian coast of the Black Sea, and earthquake in Spitak (Armenia). Some of this photo journeys have been supported via Indie Gogo campaign so the collaborative spirit has been present in the project in many ways.
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The resultant 'Lost Territories' archive, which consists of several thousand photographs, has become a starting point for exhibitions, books, and installations. Each of the narratives to emerge in the future will address a different aspect of the post-Soviet lands. So is ‘Fruit Garden’.
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More about the book
The book‘Fruit Garden’ itself may be called a photographic field guide of sorts, albeit one that leads the viewer less to the bird than to the cage; less to the tree than to the coil of wire painfully binding its bark; less to an Arcadian landscape than to the post-Soviet landfill.
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Tweezers in hand, the Fruit Garden’s archaeological dig evolves to become a meticulous survey of the doctrinal mindset underpinning Michurin’s axiom; and of the ways in which, during the reign of the Soviet Union, its repeated and obsessive society-wide implementation left, in the ideology’s wake, a razed expanse of human ecologies and psychologies, here represented by unseen tribes of damaged individuals, scarred for life by the regime’s dehumanizing regimen of invasive scientific experimentation,
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The book has already been partially supported by Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. To complete the process of pritning we kindly ask for your support.
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Technical information
Fruit Garden
Size: 170x220mm
Pages: 180
Hard-cover
Bound in half blue paper over ivory linen
Partial oil varnish
No. of photos: 85
Edition: 500
Book design: Anna Nałęcka-Milach/ Tapir Book Design
Photos: Andrei Balco, Jan Brykczynski, Andrei Liankievich, Michal Luczak, Rafal Milach, Adam Panczuk, Agnieszka Rayss.
OTHER REWARDS
Lost Territories: Wordbook ( English and Polish version available)
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Size: 110x220mm
21 writers
164 pages
20 images
Print run: 500 copies
The Lost Territories Wordbook (LTA 1), for which Sputnik commissioned nearly one hundred short texts from twenty-one authors (essayists and journalists, novelists and poets, political scientists and historians, artists and curators—and sometimes the journalists are poets and vice versa) charged with the express mission of drafting, oddly enough, a Soviet and post-Soviet lexicon with missing words in order to compile a dictionary with missing definitions.
Although upon closer inspection, the Wordbook in fact reveals itself to be a dictionary of missing definitions, crazy-quilted together from the kinds of “truth told slant” illuminations you’re unlikely to find in a definitive reference book or citable treatise.
SET OF POSTCARDS!!!
Set of 3 postcards with photographs Sputnik Photos photographers had taken during their Lost Territories trips. Posctacrds signed by authors.
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ORIGINAL POLAROIDS!!!!
Original instant prints taken by Sputnik Photographers (random choice), signed by authors.
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IS (NOT) - RARE BOOK!
Only 3 copies.
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Photographers: Jan Brykczynski, Michal Luczak, Rafal Milach, Adam Panczuk, Agnieszka Rayss Text by: Sindri Freysson, Hermann Stefansson, Kristin Heida Kristinsdottir, Sigurbjorg Prastardottir, Huldar Breidfjord Editor / curator: Andrzej Kramarz Designer: Ania Nałęcka / Tapir Book Design Language of text: English / Icelandic ISBN: 978-83-927485-8-8 Publisher: Sputnik Photos Print run: 1000.
OUT OF PRINT, these 3 copies are offered for the campaign by our brave photographers!
More about IS(NOT) project here.
Black Sea + print + box SOLD OUT!!!
book by Rafal Milach
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BOOK INFO
76 pages,
27 pictures,
335×270 mm,
hard cover
print size: 21×26.5 cm
printrun: 300 copies
ISBN: 978-8393336111
photos by Rafal Milach
texts by Rafal Milach
design by Ania Nalecka / TBD
publisher: self-published
NEW PERK!!!!
This Is Where the End of Cities Begins - special edition + print
by Agnieszka Rayss
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This Is Where the End of Cities Begins / Tu się zaczyna koniec miast
soft cover 198 x 310 m
80 pages 34 pictures
print 198 x 310 mmphotos: Agnieszka Rayss
text: Filip Springer
design: Ania Nalecka / TBD
edition: 350 copies, including 25 special edition copies
publisher: Sputnik Photos
ISBN: 978-83-941826-1-8
NEW PERK!!!
Special edition of BOIKO book by Jan Brykczynski + print
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more information here
NEW PERK!!!
Special edition of THE GARDENER book + 2 prints
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more information here
SPUTNIK NOTEBOOK + POLAROID!!! sold out!
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Sputnik Photos (the publisher)
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Sputnik Photos is an international collective founded in 2006 by documentary photographers from Central and Eastern Europe. Experiencing the transformation of their home region has become a pretext for commenting on the social, political, and cultural processes occurring in it. Using photography, film, and photographic books, the collective has been building a record of the transformations in the former Eastern bloc for more than a decade. The activities are supported by a team of curators, writers, graphic artists, and animators of culture. Using documentary photography as a starting point, Sputnik photographers explore its modern dimension and functions, as well as experiment with its form and content. The collective is also dedicated to diverse forms of visual education with a view to supporting and promoting young artists from the region.
Timeframe
· October – November 2016 – Indiegogo Campaign
· December 2016 – January 2017 – Production and quality check
· February 2017 – Shipping
Thank you for your support!