OLGA MEDVEDKOVA

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.

En el verano de 1980, pocos dias antes de la ceremonia de apertura de los celebres Juegos Olimpicos boicoteados por multitud de paises tras la invasion sovietica de Afganistan, Liza Klein y su madre abandonan Moscu para pasar tres dias en el campo, pero ni siquiera estas breves vacaciones permiten a la joven descansar de la severa educacion que le impone su protectora madre de origenes aristocraticos. A traves de la relacion entre ambos personajes, la autora revisita lugares olvidados para reconstruir el pasado: ¿que supone haber nacido y crecido en la Union Sovietica?, ¿en que consistia aquella educacion y hasta que punto era, pese a todo, sovietica la que inculcaron a sus vastagos las elites nacidas del deshielo?