Olga Gubanova's photograph is the participant of III Biennale of Contemporary Photography in The Russian Museum

I am delighted to be able to let you know that my photograph “Écru No16” was given to The State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg.

The Russian museum will be presenting the exquisite collection of modern Russian photography to the respected public for two months in the forthcoming spring 2014 for the time of III Biennale of Contemporary Photography.

The Russian Museum is the first Russian public museum of fine art. The State Russian Museum possesses the most exhaustive collection of Russian fine art in the world. It is classical and very powerful institution. I think about “Black Square” by Kazimir Malevich and the alphabet of perception. It is there.

The photographs currently are kept in St Michael's Castle of Emperor Paul which belongs to the Russian Museum. The art works are in the castle of the color of dragon's blood. They are in the place which has been glowing every sunny and sultry day, it was gleaming in the middle of the north summer rainy night when eight years ago I went by. It was mentioned in so many mysterious pieces of Russian literature.
The photographs will be exhibited in the Marble Palace of Count Orlov, another department of The Russian museum and very famous venue. The Marble Palace in Saint Petersburg is decorated at least by 32 shadows of different sorts of marble. The palace is lilac and pale and lavender and rose. Like all buildings ornamented by natural stone it reflects colors of the sky and Neva and it evolves as a result of weather.
St Michael's Castle was built as a residence for Emperor Paul. The Marble Palace was erected for the favorite of Empress Catherine the Great, the mother of Emperor Paul.

The Biennale will be accompanied by the release of the specially designed Biennial Сatalogue, the book of exceptional quality which will be published in English and in Russian.

I am so grateful for including me in the exhibition. Organizational efforts and curatorial selection of employees of The Russian Museum are most appreciated. Being usually balanced in my expressions I have to admit the words of my friend regarding the event, yes, it is the triumph.

Я счастлива поделиться новостью о том, что моя фотография “Écru No16” была передана в дар Русскому музею.

Весной 2014 года в течение двух месяцев во время III музейной Биеннале современной фотографии Русский музей представит уважаемой публике утончённое собрание современной фотографии.

Русский музей - первый в стране музей русского изобразительного искусства. В Русском музее находится самая крупная в мире коллекция предметов русского искусства. Я думаю о “Чёрном Квадрате” Малевича и алфавите восприятия. Квадрат сейчас там.

В настоящее время отобранные фотографии хранятся в Инженерном замке, который принадлежит Русскому музею. Арт-работы находятся в замке цвета драконьей крови, контуры его пылают в любую погоду. Он светился в середине северной летней дождливой ночи восемь лет назад. Замок упомянут во множестве необыкновенных произведений русской литературы.
Фотографии участников Биеннале будут выставлены в Мраморном дворце, также принадлежащем Русскому музею. Мраморный дворец декорирован как минимум 32 оттенками разных видов мрамора. Лиловое, пастельное, лавандовое и розовое здание. Подобно всем выстроенным из камня архитектурным сооружениям, дворец отражает цвета неба и Невы, и его оттенок эволюционирует в результате воздействия погоды.
Инженерный замок был построен в качестве резиденции императора Павла. Мраморный дворец был возведён для фаворита императрицы Екатерины Великой, матери императора Павла.

Биеннале будет сопровождаться выходом специально созданного сотрудниками музея каталога, издания исключительного качества, которое будет опубликовано на русском и английском языке.

Я благодарна за предоставленную возможность участия в выставке. Бесконечно ценю организационные усилия и кураторский выбор организаторов. Обычно я сдержанно выражаю свои эмоции, но сегодня вынуждена признать правоту и точность слов друга, который сказал по поводу этого события, что это триумф.

Olga Gubanova. Essay. Raven

R.

I walked along the front of the building where my family rented an apartment. It was near a river and close to that city's sole sand beach. Somebody used to cut the grass. When it was done in the middle of summer, the grass stopped growing. At least in that climate. It withered. Densely covered by short dry sticks the lawns remained the same and smelt the same for the rest of the summer. By heat and an unknown waisted land.

After this you couldn't walk on any lawns. Summer suggests sandals, but dried grass is stiff and sharp like blunt knives. It doesn't cut, it tears the skin. Such wounds on the open areas of feet are enduring.

There, on cutting sticks, between the concrete wall and a pavement, a tremendous black bird with extended wings lay. I was sure that it was a raven, however I couldn't say that its colour was exactly raven's black. But it was still black. It was the most dark and dense black I have ever seen. I could compare it later only with black clothes and hair of the refined Italians whose black was very specific. The raven's plumage was stretched like a composition of open black fans. Somewhere it was covered by grayish areas of a discoloration as if by a mold. Nevertheless, it was such the dark object in the city in the middle of the melting summer that its body was like an opening in the reality. Like a black liquid shadow of something on burned by sun grass. A hole without volume. Despite obvious outlines of the black, bright black, it was hard to distinguish details.

I guessed that if I had lain on the thorny grass carpet its wingspan would have been equal to my height.

And I thought that it was dead, but it definitely had died beautifully. Wings were open, almost symmetrically, every separate feather was like a black plate. Black as the mixture of a monsoon and charred till the last fibre wood. Probably it had been a very clever bird, because it was able to control its posture even at the last moment. Its pose was like that of a straight and noble human being.

I began to approach slowly. I noticed eyes. The eyes happened to be open. They might as well be closed. They were black, without any expression. Eyes like shape, not like content. I had been looking at its eyes, because they were impossible to look into, and at the certain step of this careful pace on the vertical grassy knives I noticed that I had just glanced into them. Their expression changed. I was bestowed by meaning in the eyes of the tremendous old bird. It was an expression of time. Definitely not fear and not annoyance. A flash of attention. Maybe it sighed slightly or it moved a little. I understood that despite the fact that I hadn't desired exactly this, I was losing my chance to touch it, so I fastened, I bowed, reaching, and I almost touched a fringe of one of its outstretched feathers. Maybe a centimetre between the edge of the right black wing and the tips of my fingers. This black hole in the summer did have claws. Coaly. It changed position slightly, then moved aside and instantly took off, very easyly. Without hastle, just easy. It was very strong and graceful big bird.

I realized that it had been drying its plumage in the bright sun. It probably wanted to kill some parasites. I believe it didn't like rain. I wouldn't say that it didn't love people. It contemplated them, made conclusions. But cold rain was more annoying than the whole of mankind. It landed not so far away from where it had been and stretched its wings once more. A bit different posture. I didn't try to touch it again.

It is interesting that Scandinavian god Odin was associated with two ravens. These birds flew around Earth then came back to Odin, set at his shoulders and reported at night the happenings of a day in the world. They were named Huginn and Muninn, which means “Thought” and “Memory”.

Maybe it was impossible to touch a legend.

original copyright © ∞ Olga Gubanova 2013

Olga Gubanova. Essay. Wasps

W.

The last two summers before graduating high school I spent a tremendous amount of time trying to get a suntan. An artificial tan wasn't popular.

Now I believe that in certain climate zones in this country only people of specific types and shades of skin are able to get a natural suntan. I had to spend a lot of time beneath the open sun for the lightest hint of a tan. However I used to lie on a beach. We all had to take and pass entrance exams to university and it was my way of preparation. With books from the second year of a medicine school, beneath the summer sun, nearby brown quick muddy water.

I possessed an islet of yellow sand. The single sandy beach in an empty city and a very strange lawn around it. The grass there was higher than human height. After spring rains the ground in its shadow was wet and for this reason for the whole summer the grass was very green. Over a road it was cut and dry.

The sultry season with really hot filled with the dry air days. The straight sun was like melted gold of a very cold colour. The absolutely immovable air. The atmosphere without layers and without streams. Exceptionally concrete lines of landscape. No distortions to a curve of a river.

Idyllic mood. Like in "Breath" by Telepopmusic. With several exceptions. The river was paved by bent ancient slabs. Like a half of a giant pipe. Swimming was dangerous. The buttom was curved and brown, banks were clayey. The dark painting inside the green frame under the brightest sun. Desolate months. Time for solitude. It seemed as if the air in this weather lost its ability to carry things. That every even plane object would fall faster than usual and if it had been perfectly flat, it would have cut this air into two absolutely transparent canvases. Classmates could always find me among these thick grasses and share my rug or rumple a bit more grass nearby, look at the sky through half-closed eyelashes, think about the future. Twelve years ago.

Once my friend asked me, “Are your eyes closed? ” tenderly.
“Yes,” faster than in sleep, “What the strange question,” I can't open my eyes, the sunshine is too bright, can't open them wildly in summer, she knew and I was lying on my back.
“It isn't the question, it is just the introduction.”
“Why did you ask?”
“Don't move, please.”
“ … ”
“Could you promise me that you won't make any sudden or wide gestures?”
“Yes.”
“And won't jump.”
“Yes. What is the next?”
“And, could you promise me as well that you won't scream or squeal?”
“Do you think I can squeal? Am I able to scream in such hot weather?”
“If I were you, I would learn to do.”
With the lightest suspicion, “So it isn't a surprise?” I must admit I though briefly about some gift after such an introduction, but recollected that she wore a skirt and it was without pockets.
“I am not sure.”
“Is it bad news?” how could this materialize in the middle of my island of calmness.
“Not news exactly. Maybe yes.”
I already feel that I won't be able to move.
“There is a wasp. Exactly above you.”
“Mmm?”
“One small hungry wasp with a sharp stinger and striped skin.”
“Where?”
“Right above you.”
“Where exactly?”
“Over you chest.”
“How close to me?!”
“Forty centimeters, I guess.”
Twenty seconds of silence.
“And why shouldn't I open my eyes because of a random wasp which has flown by?!”
“You promised you won't scream. But it isn't important now, it isn't afraid of yells.”
“Why?” whisper.
“It is hanging there.”
I decide to open eyes. Too bright. Then I start making out the silhouette.
She continues, “You aren't afraid of wasps, are you?”
“I guess so.”
“It's good. Because it has been hanging over you for about ten minutes. Motionlessly.”

I realize that I am lying under the wasp whose muzzle is overshadowing my sun, not seriously, but in fact. It hovers over me, its wings are moving but it is keeping its height and the position. Like a mute extra small helicopter. This tiny thing when it soars so steadily looks very heavy, like a small heavy jewelery and it is incomprehensible how it can only hang there and look at you. There exist different species of wasps. This one was narrow and small with bright very contrasting stripes. Funny creature and among all creatures this one certainly was a wasp.

Then my friend added, “It is looking at you.”
“Nonsense.”
“I assure you, it is looking at you.”
After this the creature with a sudden "bdgik" flew away. Of course without any trace in transparent air. But it wasn't the end. It came back. With a friend, another wasp with the same behavior. They hung together above me for five or six minutes, then disappeared with a similar simultaneous "bdgik". And returned after a while with a third friend.
“What do you think, what are they going to do?”
“Perhaps take aim?”
“I think they are having sunbathes.”
“Why among all this grass exactly above me?”

They continued to hover steadily. Despite my first impression there was the slightest movement of air, probably changes of temperature had begotten a wind and blending of layers took the wasps slightly to the right. But they accelerated and came back. It wasn't a straight row, the middle creature and the right one were slightly behind, nevertheless they were at the same height and with equal intervals between them. Very strange.
My friend. She was laying on her side, her elbow under the head. Without any interest from the wasps' side.

“I suppose, you reflect sun light. And their bellies get a suntan.”
“I have to confess, I start being afraid of wasps.”
“And I have another question. It's interesting, what do your books say say about this, are they men or women?”
“I prefer to dress and get away before they come back with a fourth one or with the whole hive.”
Thoughtfully, “They can't be women, rather men, in my view.”

I changed the position around the space of this sandy and grassy beach for the whole summer. It didn't depend on place, company or its absence. Every time they found me and began their game with daylight and the melodic sound of disappearance.
“Bdgik”, when I looked at them severely or, later, fixedly. Then every time they invited their friends, other wasps. Perhaps it's such a wasps' flirt.

“I have to tell you something,” said another classmate.
With delicate intonations, “How many of them?”
“What do you mean?”
“Two, four, maybe eight?”
“... two... so you know about this phenomenon.”
“Yes, wasps, so how many today?”
What I know about wasps precisely is that they can feel embarrassment. Especially when you catch them peeping at you.

My friendly wasps.

original copyright © ∞ Olga Gubanova 2011

Olga Gubanova's photograph is the finalist of the 33rd Annual Spring Photography Contest / Photographer's Forum Magazine / Best of Photography 2013

My photograph from the series “There Where Golden Cherries Hang” became a finalist of the 33rd Annual Spring Photography Contest presented by Photographer's Forum Magazine and supported by Sigma. Check out the Photographer's Forum Magazine site for it's preview which was published in the winners gallery. The photograph will be printed in the United States in the hardcover book “Best of Photography 2013”.

It gives me a chance to publish here once more a link to my Facebook dedicated to photography. Welcome and tell your friends. 

I congratulate my devoted reader, supportive friends and surprised passersby with last days of summer (or may be winter, it all depends on a hemisphere). Thank you for your attention. For your astonishment. It inspires to realize things which were conceived in the seventh reflection of the silver mirror.

And until the meeting in September.

Моя фотография из цикла “Там, где висят золотые вишни” стала финалистом 33 Annual Spring Photography Contest, проводимого Photographer's Forum Magazine при поддержке Sigma. Вы можете увидеть привью фотографии в галерее победителей, которая уже опубликована на сайте журнала. Фотография будет напечатана в США в книге “Best of Photography 2013”. Пожалуй, это хороший повод ещё раз выложить здесь ссылку на мой Facebook, посвящённый фотографии. Заглядывайте и приглашайте друзей.

Поздравляю вас с последними днями лета (или зимы, всё зависит от полушария, в котором вы находитесь). Спасибо за ваше внимание. За ваше удивление. Это вдохновляет меня реализовывать то, что было задумано в седьмом отражении серебряного зеркала.

До встречи в сентябре.