Alexander Gronsky

Alexander Gronsky (Tallinn, Estonia, 1980). 'Alexander Gronsky travels over the miles of Eurasia—from the Gold Ring of middle Russia to the Far East and across Yamal to Sotchi. However, he confesses that the two countries he is most eager to photograph are Russia and China, because these are the places where people are as insignificant as pawns on the chessboard. Alexander Gronsky’s photographs of Murmansk take us to a city where the night lasts two months in winter, an eerie place strung along the Arctic Circle. Time, as if suspended, has covered the city with a thick coat of snow. The colour of the sky fluctuates between deep blue, midnight blue and black. Electric light is always present—floodlights on the docks, luminary, fairy lights—but doesn’t warm the atmosphere for all that. To some, it looks cheerful as New Year’s Eve; to others, desperate and lonely. Even the Christmas tree, crowned with the Soviet red star, seems to be left eternally in the yard, serving as a leading light to the lost inhabitants. The window light tends to warm up the freezing space, sending out an impulse of joy. This warm light provided by people living in these very blocks turns out to be ghostly and deceptive. Stuck on the window glass, the characters float in this "endless night". And nothing can disturb the status quo.' Liza Fetissova.