about. photography. moving image. print.
Traces of Living (2026 - present)
35 mm B&W Photography, Gelatin Silver Print, Mordancage Method
Roots, Photographic Print & Mordançage, 2026
Absent But Seen, Photographic Print & Mordançage, 2026...
The photographic series consists of silver gelatin prints made from 35mm negatives that are deliberately disrupted using the Mordançage Method.
Mordançage is a historic, craft-based photographic process developed by photographer Jean‐Pierre Sudre.
The technique allows artists to physically manipulate a silver gelatin print by lifting, repositioning, and securing the deepest black areas of a black-and-white darkroom photograph.
Through this intervention, the image transforms into a three-dimensional reverse relief, marked by delicate gelatin veils and an overall degraded, time-worn appearance
Mordançage is a historic, craft-based photographic process developed by photographer Jean‐Pierre Sudre.
The technique allows artists to physically manipulate a silver gelatin print by lifting, repositioning, and securing the deepest black areas of a black-and-white darkroom photograph.
Through this intervention, the image transforms into a three-dimensional reverse relief, marked by delicate gelatin veils and an overall degraded, time-worn appearance
At its core, the work examines the reconstructive nature of memory and how lived experiences fracture and erode each time we return to them.
Having migrated from my city of birth, Petrozavodsk, at a very young age and being unable to visit for many years, I approach the idea of “returning home” through the lens of childhood memories shaped by the post-Soviet landscape.
I revisit moments such as looking up at trees with friends on a bright summer day, returning to corners that once hosted small adventures, and recalling friendships and mentors who once felt central to my world.
Though these moments and relationships have long passed, their emotional residue endures - sometimes vivid, sometimes distorted, much like memory itself.
To give these traces a surreal and slightly unsettling presence, I use Mordançage to physically alter the photographic surface.
The gelatin skin of the print wrinkles, erodes, and reforms; its degradation, asymmetrical qualities, and reconstruction mirror the instability of recollection.
The fragmented and textured surfaces embody the emotional and cultural residue carried by these early experiences, not as clear narratives, but as impressions suspended between clarity and loss.
Through this material disruption, I create a sense of suspended presence in which the subject feels perceptible yet incomplete, hovering between appearance and disappearance.
The work captures familiar faces and places as unstable forms, present but never fully intact. Some memories feel distant and abstract, while others retain sharper definition.
Accordingly, some images in the series appear almost dissolved. In contrast, others remain more detailed yet visibly eroded, reflecting the varied ways we remember and experience the idea of home, place and cultural residues.
Having migrated from my city of birth, Petrozavodsk, at a very young age and being unable to visit for many years, I approach the idea of “returning home” through the lens of childhood memories shaped by the post-Soviet landscape.
I revisit moments such as looking up at trees with friends on a bright summer day, returning to corners that once hosted small adventures, and recalling friendships and mentors who once felt central to my world.
Though these moments and relationships have long passed, their emotional residue endures - sometimes vivid, sometimes distorted, much like memory itself.
To give these traces a surreal and slightly unsettling presence, I use Mordançage to physically alter the photographic surface.
The gelatin skin of the print wrinkles, erodes, and reforms; its degradation, asymmetrical qualities, and reconstruction mirror the instability of recollection.
The fragmented and textured surfaces embody the emotional and cultural residue carried by these early experiences, not as clear narratives, but as impressions suspended between clarity and loss.
Through this material disruption, I create a sense of suspended presence in which the subject feels perceptible yet incomplete, hovering between appearance and disappearance.
The work captures familiar faces and places as unstable forms, present but never fully intact. Some memories feel distant and abstract, while others retain sharper definition.
Accordingly, some images in the series appear almost dissolved. In contrast, others remain more detailed yet visibly eroded, reflecting the varied ways we remember and experience the idea of home, place and cultural residues.
Little Vegas, Photographic Print & Mordançage, 2026...
Boat, Photographic Print & Mordançage, 2026...
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