Section / Faces

The marrying of the factual and conceptual is not always a success. Some voices in either industry may go as far as to argue that the union is even inappropriate. But when artistic concepts or aesthetics are applied, and journalistic ethics are preserved, the outcome can be impactful.

Elena Anosova’s work, ‘Faces’ from her wider project ‘Section’, is such an example of such impact. She describes her work as being “centered around lives of women in closed institutions, isolation, social stigmatization” specifically in her native Russia.

The photographs submitted to Flash Forward are from the several months Anosova spent documenting women’s prisons in Siberia. Amongst other things, she photographed the institutional portraits that were taken and printed by the prison administration and sewn onto the inmates’ clothes to serve as identity cards.

Though the project is documenting found images, the cards look like works of art. Over time, the cards faded, became damaged and distorted. Watermarks, creases, and even holes give the impression that these images have been made using an alternative printmaking process.

But, more than their aesthetics, its their meaning that affects us most. Through Anosova’s documentation these distortions, which happened naturally as the prisoners served their sentence, become a metaphor for the impact that institutionalised life has on the women. The amount of damage gives a sense of the amount of time the individual has already spent in prison.

Anosova says that the images distort much in the same way a person does when being “without security and any possibility of being alone.” In this way, a simple series of photographs conveys an intricate social construct. They could be published with a news outlet or hang on a gallery wall, either way they will stay in your mind.