📗 Libro en inglés LISE SARFATI: ACTA EST

A powerful record of post-communist Russia by a recent Magnum photographer.

The first book by French photographer-artist Lise Sarfati, one of Magnum's newest recruits
Weaves images of Russia during the 1990s into a visual drama of dysfunction and deterioration, change and beauty
Documents the human and architectural ruins of post-communist Russia: a world of decaying buildings and neglected factories peopled with lost characters
With a thought-provoking introduction by the Russian-born art historian Olga Medvedkova

Acta Est is the first book by the French photographer-artist Lise Sarfati. Composed of images made during extended visits to Russia in the 1990s, Acta Est is neither travelogue nor photo-journalistic essay. Rather, Sarfati weaves daring detailed descriptions of the Russian environments that fascinate her to create a visual drama of dysfunction and deterioration, change and beauty. The title - from the Latin phrase Acta Est Fabula, meaning 'the play is over' - signals her insistence that the work not be read as journalism but as a work of theatrical imagination.

Sarfati builds a disturbing world of decaying buildings and neglected factories, which she brings to an eerie life with lost characters: young transsexuals and teenage runaways interned in 're-education' camps. What results is a body of beautiful, engaging and disturbing photographs that are both a powerful historical record of Russia at the end of an era and examples of the unique poetry of a powerful new visual artist conjuring her own world. The forty-six featured photographs sequenced by Sarfati are accompanied by a thought-provoking introduction by the Russian-born art historian Olga Medvedkova.