Thousands of ethnic Russians convert to Islam annually, according to the members of the Mufti Council of Russia. Concerned with the idea of protection of the Russian (meaning – Orthodox) identity, the government launched a system of persecution of the converts, branding them as terrorists. Many of them flee, but the Russian secret services try to hunt them down even abroad, and foreign countries treat them with suspicion.
The surveillance tools are no longer a privilege of national securities and corporate data mining. It was only a matter of time for technology to develop to a point when it would become available for virtually anyone.
Elena Anosova spent 2 months living and working in three Russian female penal colonies, exploring the inner world of the inmates based on her own childhood experiences of living in a closed rehabilitation school. The result is a striking series called ‘Section’ that reveals how being in confinement and under constant surveillance disfigures and traumatize a person.
In Tajikistan, live swirls around weddings. In the country, where 47.2% live below the poverty threshold, and 80% of the employable population work abroad as labour migrants, the amount of money spent on weddings per year equals the country’s budget of $2 billion.
In rich houses Service Personnel such as maids, butlers, cooks and gardeners have been working at all times. All those professions took their places in world service industry, but in Russia those professions are still second quality occupations.
Oksana Yushko has decided to focus her project on love that bonds Russia and Ukraine together by picturing Russian-Ukrainian couples from both countries.