PHOTOGRAPHY
"At the age of 16 I saw a dream, where I was following amazing adventures, and taking pictures of people, events, lights and shadows. It was easy, full of pleasure, and the shots came out very unique and interesting, I remember the composition and light of each of them, in all details. When I woke up, I still could recall every image I'd made, only the images were gone. Since that, I'm feverishly obsessed with capturing the reality with my camera, as if I'm still chasing the paradise of that dream"
(Irina Popova, 2009)
Some random facts
- in 2009 Irina Popova won the Prize "The Best Photographer of Russia"
- she published 16 photobooks, with print runs 50 to 1200 copies
- her works are in collection of the Russian Museum, the Hermitage Museum, Stedelijk museum among others
- in her final exhbition at the Rijksakademie, she broght a ton of soil into her studio, and exhbited photos under the ground.
- Her works were published in the Guardian, New York Times, Foam, Le Photo etc.
- the photographer's archive counts more than 1 million of unique images, most of which are still to be processed and discovered.
- in 2009 Irina Popova won the Prize "The Best Photographer of Russia"
- she published 16 photobooks, with print runs 50 to 1200 copies
- her works are in collection of the Russian Museum, the Hermitage Museum, Stedelijk museum among others
- in her final exhbition at the Rijksakademie, she broght a ton of soil into her studio, and exhbited photos under the ground.
- Her works were published in the Guardian, New York Times, Foam, Le Photo etc.
- the photographer's archive counts more than 1 million of unique images, most of which are still to be processed and discovered.
If You Have a Secret
"If you have a secret, go far away and hide it under the ground" (Irina Popova)
If You Have a Secret / photobook
“No sentimentalty
towards the Motherland.
Absolutely none.
All what is left from the Motherland –
no official ideology, no patriotism,
just the sandy, dirty, dry, unfriendly, unfruitful soil.”
As children we used to play a game called “Secrets”. To hide something, to bury it under the ground: a flower, a leaf, a wrapper of a sweet under a glass. And it would become a secret, something important and wonderful.
The earth means connection to the land, your only visible image of the Motherland.
In 2009 I left Russia, and since then I look for this image.
To tell you a story of my native land, I came back to my archives. Hundreds of thousands of images, seven years of photographic life, the incredibly personal stories formed together this book.
This book is a symbol of an endless country, a story of a person of “the lost generation” - between the ruined Soviet Union, chaos of the nineteens and development of a new authoritarian unit.
Sometimes this book makes you laugh, sometimes it makes you cry. You feel at the same time the unbearable pain and highest joy. It is this combination of the complicated, the uncontrollable and the absurd, which we call “the mysterious Russian soul”.
Publisher: Dostoevsky Publishing (Amsterdam)
Texts and images by Irina Popova
128 photo pages + 64 text pages pages
1st edition, designed by Anton Lepashov, 120 English copies, 64 Russian, 2014 - sold out
2nd version, 1st edition, designed by Dostoevsky Production and Irina Popova- 400 Enlish copies, 100 Russian copies, 2017
last copies price 125 € - Get your copy
Compare prices
2nd version, 2nd edition, 500 English copies, 2019
Price: 40 €
Get your copy
“No sentimentalty
towards the Motherland.
Absolutely none.
All what is left from the Motherland –
no official ideology, no patriotism,
just the sandy, dirty, dry, unfriendly, unfruitful soil.”
As children we used to play a game called “Secrets”. To hide something, to bury it under the ground: a flower, a leaf, a wrapper of a sweet under a glass. And it would become a secret, something important and wonderful.
The earth means connection to the land, your only visible image of the Motherland.
In 2009 I left Russia, and since then I look for this image.
To tell you a story of my native land, I came back to my archives. Hundreds of thousands of images, seven years of photographic life, the incredibly personal stories formed together this book.
This book is a symbol of an endless country, a story of a person of “the lost generation” - between the ruined Soviet Union, chaos of the nineteens and development of a new authoritarian unit.
Sometimes this book makes you laugh, sometimes it makes you cry. You feel at the same time the unbearable pain and highest joy. It is this combination of the complicated, the uncontrollable and the absurd, which we call “the mysterious Russian soul”.
Publisher: Dostoevsky Publishing (Amsterdam)
Texts and images by Irina Popova
128 photo pages + 64 text pages pages
1st edition, designed by Anton Lepashov, 120 English copies, 64 Russian, 2014 - sold out
2nd version, 1st edition, designed by Dostoevsky Production and Irina Popova- 400 Enlish copies, 100 Russian copies, 2017
last copies price 125 € - Get your copy
Compare prices
2nd version, 2nd edition, 500 English copies, 2019
Price: 40 €
Get your copy
Another Family
"A world famous photographic drama about a family of punks in St. Petersburg and their liltle kid"
More on the Guardian:
More on the Guardian:
Another Family
Description
This fascinating book tells the story of Irina Popova’s stay with a
family of drug-users in St. Petersburg, Russia. The photo story –
focusing on a small child living in shocking family circumstances –
has provoked an explosion of criticism on the Internet, directed
towards the parents as well as at the photographer.
The book reveals the documentary evidence during the development
of the story, including the previously unpublished photos from the
archives of the photographer herself and the characters,
the web pages of blogs with comments, the private letters and the
diaries. It attempts to analyze
the consequences of the photographer’s actions and the degree of
responsibility of the photographer. The multivocal storytelling in the
book forms the screenplay for a real-life drama.
This is the first time this frequently discussed topic of the supposed
responsibility of documentary photographers has been analyzed so
consistently and comprehensively in book form. This book is therefore
more than simply a documentary photo book depicting the deplorable
situation of a drug-addict family – it is an essential document dealing
with the question all documentary photographers may be confronted
with at some time in their careers: can I continue working or should I
stop and try to help solve the problem I am witness to?
Another Family was shortlisted at Marie Claire Photography awards, National Geogpraphic Photo Awards, UNICEF photography prize, exhibited at Pickpocket Gallery Lisbon, Void Gallery Derry, Fotodepartament, St. Petersburg.
Photobook
Publisher: Dostoevsky Publishing
Design: Victor Levy
Language: English
Pages: 200
Size: 17.5 x 23.2
Weight: 735 g
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN: 9789053307793
Extracts from the book
Availability: Last 10 copies available
Price: 50 euro. Buy the book
Compare prices
Description
This fascinating book tells the story of Irina Popova’s stay with a
family of drug-users in St. Petersburg, Russia. The photo story –
focusing on a small child living in shocking family circumstances –
has provoked an explosion of criticism on the Internet, directed
towards the parents as well as at the photographer.
The book reveals the documentary evidence during the development
of the story, including the previously unpublished photos from the
archives of the photographer herself and the characters,
the web pages of blogs with comments, the private letters and the
diaries. It attempts to analyze
the consequences of the photographer’s actions and the degree of
responsibility of the photographer. The multivocal storytelling in the
book forms the screenplay for a real-life drama.
This is the first time this frequently discussed topic of the supposed
responsibility of documentary photographers has been analyzed so
consistently and comprehensively in book form. This book is therefore
more than simply a documentary photo book depicting the deplorable
situation of a drug-addict family – it is an essential document dealing
with the question all documentary photographers may be confronted
with at some time in their careers: can I continue working or should I
stop and try to help solve the problem I am witness to?
Another Family was shortlisted at Marie Claire Photography awards, National Geogpraphic Photo Awards, UNICEF photography prize, exhibited at Pickpocket Gallery Lisbon, Void Gallery Derry, Fotodepartament, St. Petersburg.
Photobook
Publisher: Dostoevsky Publishing
Design: Victor Levy
Language: English
Pages: 200
Size: 17.5 x 23.2
Weight: 735 g
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN: 9789053307793
Extracts from the book
Availability: Last 10 copies available
Price: 50 euro. Buy the book
Compare prices
Welcome to LTP
A Labour Treatment Profilactorium for alcohol addicted in Belarus, in the work of Irina Popova becomes an ironic upside-down Disneyland
Title: Welcome to LTP
Artist: Irina Popova
It is a book about alcoholism.
Most of us drink regularly, without any acknowledgement of our little habit as an addiction.
This book will transport you to the bottom of this issue – to a strange place called the Labour Treatment Profilactorium for the Alcohol and Drug addicted.
Before you can begin you must open a real metal cage, with the risk that you might damage yourself. Once inside you can open the tattooed skin of the front cover and begin your journey!
The book is a surreal voyage, taking you through a closed space filled with artistic Soviet propaganda while also witnessing the occupants with their lost faces. You will read their postcards of postmodernist monologues and insane collages and get a taste of the endless set of rules that govern this place (including all the details of how to dispose of your body should the worst happen).
Before you can leave the nightmare behind you must fill in the release form, where you will need to describe your own behaviour. And finally your journey is complete.
Background story:
The first Labour Treatment Profilactoria appeared in the USSR in 1967 within the territory of Kazakhstan. In the future, the system of LTP was actively used for the forced isolation of persons suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction, or those who were disturbing public order and rules "of the socialist way of life."
Citizens were sent to LTP by order of the regional courts for a period of 6 months to 2 years. Their decision was final, with no right to appeal. Human rights activists in the Soviet Union called LTP part of the Soviet “punitive psychotherapy” system.
On October 25th, 1990, the Committee of Constitutional Supervision of the USSR adopted a conclusion, according to which certain provisions of existing legislation were declared inconsistent with the Constitution of the USSR and international norms of human rights. The Constitutional Oversight Committee came to the conclusion that, under the law, obligatory treatment in LTP (i.e. the restriction of freedom that is close to that of a criminal sentence) had been applied to persons who had not committed any crime.
After the collapse of the USSR the LTP system was abolished in most former Soviet republics. In 1993, at the Decree of the President of Russia Boris Yeltsin, Labour Treatment Profilactoria were eliminated in Russia (with later discussions in the state duma to revive the system). At present, LTP exist only in Belarus, Turkmenistan and the unrecognized Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic.
LTP is part of the system within the internal affairs agencies of the Republic of Belarus, established for the forced isolation, and medical and social rehabilitation of citizens through the obligation to work. It is directed towards citizens with chronic alcoholism or drug addiction and these citizens are obliged to reimburse the expenses paid by the state on the maintenance of children in public care as a result of their incarceration. LTP sentencing is made in the event of systematic violations of labor discipline by these citizens because the consumption of alcoholic beverages, drugs, psychotropic agents, poisons or other intoxicating substances.
Designer: Dostoevsky Design
Published by: Dostoevsky Publishing
Printer: Aeroprint, Oude Kerk aan de Amstel, the Netherlands
Publication date and place: September 2015 / Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Edition: 500
Format, binding: softcover, packed in metal net
Size: 12x16cm
Number of pages and images: (96 pages / 48 images)
Type of printing and paper: offset / matt paper 130g
Retail price: 25 euro
Get your copy
Artist: Irina Popova
It is a book about alcoholism.
Most of us drink regularly, without any acknowledgement of our little habit as an addiction.
This book will transport you to the bottom of this issue – to a strange place called the Labour Treatment Profilactorium for the Alcohol and Drug addicted.
Before you can begin you must open a real metal cage, with the risk that you might damage yourself. Once inside you can open the tattooed skin of the front cover and begin your journey!
The book is a surreal voyage, taking you through a closed space filled with artistic Soviet propaganda while also witnessing the occupants with their lost faces. You will read their postcards of postmodernist monologues and insane collages and get a taste of the endless set of rules that govern this place (including all the details of how to dispose of your body should the worst happen).
Before you can leave the nightmare behind you must fill in the release form, where you will need to describe your own behaviour. And finally your journey is complete.
Background story:
The first Labour Treatment Profilactoria appeared in the USSR in 1967 within the territory of Kazakhstan. In the future, the system of LTP was actively used for the forced isolation of persons suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction, or those who were disturbing public order and rules "of the socialist way of life."
Citizens were sent to LTP by order of the regional courts for a period of 6 months to 2 years. Their decision was final, with no right to appeal. Human rights activists in the Soviet Union called LTP part of the Soviet “punitive psychotherapy” system.
On October 25th, 1990, the Committee of Constitutional Supervision of the USSR adopted a conclusion, according to which certain provisions of existing legislation were declared inconsistent with the Constitution of the USSR and international norms of human rights. The Constitutional Oversight Committee came to the conclusion that, under the law, obligatory treatment in LTP (i.e. the restriction of freedom that is close to that of a criminal sentence) had been applied to persons who had not committed any crime.
After the collapse of the USSR the LTP system was abolished in most former Soviet republics. In 1993, at the Decree of the President of Russia Boris Yeltsin, Labour Treatment Profilactoria were eliminated in Russia (with later discussions in the state duma to revive the system). At present, LTP exist only in Belarus, Turkmenistan and the unrecognized Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic.
LTP is part of the system within the internal affairs agencies of the Republic of Belarus, established for the forced isolation, and medical and social rehabilitation of citizens through the obligation to work. It is directed towards citizens with chronic alcoholism or drug addiction and these citizens are obliged to reimburse the expenses paid by the state on the maintenance of children in public care as a result of their incarceration. LTP sentencing is made in the event of systematic violations of labor discipline by these citizens because the consumption of alcoholic beverages, drugs, psychotropic agents, poisons or other intoxicating substances.
Designer: Dostoevsky Design
Published by: Dostoevsky Publishing
Printer: Aeroprint, Oude Kerk aan de Amstel, the Netherlands
Publication date and place: September 2015 / Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Edition: 500
Format, binding: softcover, packed in metal net
Size: 12x16cm
Number of pages and images: (96 pages / 48 images)
Type of printing and paper: offset / matt paper 130g
Retail price: 25 euro
Get your copy
Incomplete Princess Book
3 assistants, 3 months of research, 36000 images downloaded... In the middle of the process someone said "they all want to want to become a princess. We all laughted but it seemed so true"
Book design is the art of incorporating the content, style, format, design, and sequence of the various components of a book into a coherent whole. In the words of Jan Tschichold, "methods and rules upon which it is impossible to improve, have been developed over centuries. To produce perfect books, these rules have to be brought back to life and applied."
Front matter, or preliminaries, is the first section of a book, and is usually the smallest section in terms of the number of pages. Each page is counted, but no folio or page number is expressed, or printed, on either display pages or blank pages.
Front matter, or preliminaries, is the first section of a book, and is usually the smallest section in terms of the number of pages. Each page is counted, but no folio or page number is expressed, or printed, on either display pages or blank pages.
All photo and video materials belong to Irina Popova, Dostoevsky Photography Agency, All rights reserved, no use or reposting allowed without the owner's written consent.
