Friday, December 4th, journalists met with Alan Gignoux, documentary photographer from London, and Den Marino, photographer from Ekaterinburg, for an interview within the joint project of RIA FederalPress and web-page Ekaterinburg.com.

The photographers are now at the last stage of their mutual project entitled "Industreality" (Industry + Reality), which is devoted to the Soviet industrial heritage of the Ural Region. The project is close to its end, so it is a good time to see if the artists tandem has been successful and what impressions they have after working together. The masters of photography shared their ideas and thoughts at a press conference with UralPolit.Ru.

Factory as an Object of Art

Alan has been very much interested in visiting Russia to see what happened after the Soviet Union collapsed. He was sure an entirely new generation of people has appeared in the country and he was curious to meet these people. Alan was also intrigued to see the condition of industrial production in the country. Together with Den, Alan visited a number of cities in Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions; he even went as far as the Polar Ural.

"The main idea of the project is to depict a production process as a living being, not just buildings. People charge buildings with their souls, making factory alive, giving it a separate soul of its own. This is what I wanted to grasp and demonstrate through my photos," Alan says.

Ural has always been an industrial center and factories in particular are best "mirrors of the soul" of this region, authors of the project believe. "Industreality" depicts industrial facilities as living beings with their own destiny and stories.

Russian People and Their Idols

Although industrial heritage makes the main theme of the project, its leading characters are people. Alan says he is most interested in a man in shot. However both photographers admit that communication with working people wasnt always smooth. People could not understand why their factory seemed interesting to a foreigner, why to make pictures of common workers.

"Generally we were let in almost everywhere, except secret enterprises. Taken there are so many of them in the Ural, you can imagine what happened," Den recalls.

"People didn't want to be shot. The first word we would hear was "Net!" (No!). But we talked and persuaded," Gignoux laughs. "One time we were shooting with long-focus objectives," says Den, "And women saw that, came up and said it wasn't fair. They didn't have time for make-up."

Alan feels sorry there was not enough of informal communication with workers, but this was beyond the project's tasks. In the future he hopes to talk to Russians in an informal atmosphere.

Despite of all difficulties Alan points out that Russian people are open and deeply spiritual. He thinks strengthening of spirituality is connected with the recovery of the Russian Orthodox Church. "Russian people return to their spiritual roots, return to God, and sometimes even to pagan rites. This is great. The worlds history proves there should be an idol in the best sense of this word," he says.

Epochs of the Ural Towns

When Alan went to Russia he expected to see life in decline, not to say in decay.

"I compared Russia with what I saw in Romania. 15 years ago industrial production completely stopped there. Grass and trees did not grow near the industrial zones; there were no birds due to bad ecology. And after 15 years nature got it all back. In my last trip there I saw factories in ruins covered in green grass and young bushes; I saw birds nesting in deserted workshops. I expected to see something of the sort in Russia, but I was wrong. And thats good," Alan reports.

Some of the Ural towns impressed Alan in a good way, but other places looked quite shocking, like the black sky over Magnitogorsk. Alan just shrugged his shoulders when asked about Karabash. Irbit, on the other hand, delighted the British photographer with a variety of architectural styles, XIXth century mansions and coziness of a small rural town.

"I liked it very much... that different epochs are mixed together in your towns. For instance, in Ekaterinburg XIXth century classicism, Stalin's architecture and modern high-tech styles are peacefully co-existing. It looks great altogether, as if you drifted in time," Alan admires.

Local roads also left a deep trace in Gignoux's memory. Photographers traveled by car and Alan has personally experienced the "comfort" of Russian highways.

"Industreality" from Russia

Some of the works are exhibited in Chelyabinsk already. When the materials are collected and compiled together photographers plan to publish a book. The project is non-commercial, so both artist welcome sponsor help. Americans have already expressed interest in the project, while Russians dont show much enthusiasm. It may happen that a university from USA will become the sponsor of this Ural project.

"I've been into photography for 14 years and worked in many countries. Ive been in India, Lebanon, and Iraq. Russia is a very interesting country, and it is little known in England. I would like to tell more about your country through photographs. Maybe Industreality project travels to northern and eastern England to meet British viewers."

Article by Irina Toscheva

Translation by Katerina Khripun