In 1989 my grandmother travelled to Russia. On her trip she collected everything from airplane tickets to candy wrappers in a big green folder, along with photographs, postcards, and a machine-written journal. 30 years later I discovered the folder in my grandfather’s house.
In Danish, the saying "en by i Rusland" (a city in Russia) is used to describe the unknown or unfamiliar (e.g.: “to her, grammar is a city in Russia”: she knows nothing about grammar).
As Russia is unfamiliar to me, so is my grandmother who died a year before I was born. By exploring her journal and the things she kept, I sought to learn more about her and her fascination with Soviet Russia.
The project consist of my own photographs and texts together with darkroom photogram copies of my grandmothers pictures, drawings and diaries.
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