In Alupka, Crimea, 1910s
Russian and American Airmen Dinner, Alaska
Khrushchev & Nixon, Moscow, USSR
Group of Shoppers in front of a Sidewalk Shop, Russia, 1910s
New Athos Monastery Garden, Abkhazia, 1910s
The Commander of the US Army Force in the Middle East with a Group of Russia Officers, Somewhere In Iran
Nikita Khrushchev at a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, New York
In Park, 1970s
Sergei Prokofiev I
Sergei Prokofiev II
Sergei Prokofiev III
Cairo, Egypt
Swimming Pool, 1970s
Stalin & American Diplomats, Teheran, Iran
Head Study, 1910s
Information has a profound function of deception. It matters little what it "informs" us about, its "coverage" of events matters little since it is precisely no more than a cover: its purpose is to produce consensus by flat encephalogram. The complement of the unconditional simulacrum in the field is to train everyone in the unconditional reception of broadcast simulacra.––Jean Baudrillard ‘The Gulf War Did Not Take Place’
Native Tales is a view of Russian History through the images contained in the United States Library of Congress. I use these images to analyze the mechanics of propaganda and to go deeper into the agenda it serves.
Living abroad for a number of years, I became particularly aware of paradox coexistence of opposing points of view. I am intrigued that the photographs belong to the U.S. Public, however, what they display is intimate to me, a born and raised Muscovite. My identity with the depicted object gives me a sense of immediate perception of the image. The foreign perspective and the selectivity of narrative in this collection make conversations about propaganda and myth irresistible.