Artist Talks - Evgenia Arbugaeva

Evgenia Arbugaeva Talk – The Photographers’ Gallery

As a part of my professional development planning blog, I was required to attend multiple talks in regard to my studies at galleries in order to gain further insight into my desired area of photography. I decided to attend a talk at The Photographers’ Gallery in London, online, with the photographer Evgenia Arbugaeva who is a documentary photographer from Russia whose work focuses on the idea of narrative and storytelling using landscape and documentary photography. By focusing on these themes, her work often links to the idea of magical realism by creating photographs that resonate with fable, myth, and romanticism. Her work which has been documented within the Russian Arctic focusing on the stories and narrative of the landscape and the people who live and work there has been showcased in the popular publication National Geographic Magazine. With the talk put on by The Photographers’ Gallery, Evgenia Arbugaeva showcased her most recent on ongoing project titled ‘Hyperborea’.


'Hyperborea’ is a project based around documentary and landscape photography focusing on creating a story and narrative on the themes of myth, fable, and the lives and stories of the people who live and work within the Russian Arctic of Tiksi. Within this project, the artist, creates photographs of the different people of Tiksi who live in the isolated Russian Arctic, working in the meteorological and weather stations as well as on the icebreaker ship, comparing the different views she has on the Arctic instead of the people who live and work there. By focusing her work on these different comparisons, her work compares her whimsical view of the Russian Arctic to that of the ‘homely’ view that the workers have there. The people living and working within the Russian Arctic often use older work methods and techniques within the meteorological stations such as radios and the isolated feeling that people there are so often at home and relaxed with almost like they have become a part of the landscape with time.


Her focus on these themes and subjects within her photographic project leads to a lot of comparisons and contrasting imagery being made between the ‘homey’ and whimsical views that each person has compared to the artist. This comparison often gets visually shown within her work by documenting interior photographs of the workers within the landscape or inside the meteorological stations that they work in and have since then made into their homes. Whereas her photographs of just the landscape alone focusing on the serene and magical landscape combined with the Russian Northern Lights shown above.


Whilst researching the work of Evgenia Arbugaeva and attending the online talk at The Photographers’
Gallery I realised a few similarities between her work and my own. A lot of my photographic work is inspired through the themes of narrative and storytelling, emotions, and atmosphere through both my experiences in music and concert photography as well as my own editorial and personal photography projects. Attending the talk at The Photographers’ Gallery has given me a lot of insight into the way that I portray my themes within my own photography and how it can be developed further with my knowledge gained from the analysis of Evgenia Arbugaeva’s work and the talk at the gallery.

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