Photo at 12
“Work in progress ver. 2” edition
Olga Bushkova
My phone alarm rings every day at 12 o’clock, Moscow time. It’s time to take a photo and send it to my father through WhatsApp. At the same moment my father also takes a picture and sends it to me. We‘ve been doing this for more than 6 years.
11 years ago I moved to Zurich, 3000 km away from my parents who live in Rostov-on- Don, Russia. It became a task to arrange communication with my parents. I can’t really talk to my father by phone – we start to argue real quick (over advice, over politics, over my brother). In 2016 my father and I got an idea to take a photo at 12 o’clock and send it to each other through Whatsapp. Every day, at the same time.
Looking back at all the photos we’ve taken and shared with each other, I see an image of modern digital communication between a father and a daughter, between two close, but separate people living in different worlds and trying to communicate through simple direct images, because other communication means hard work.
The routine hasn’t changed even after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24th of February 2022. The communication itself, though, has unavoidably acquired new connotations and overtones. Even though “Photo at 12” started 6 years ago, it now has a new context and new meanings, pushing me to change the way it’s shown.
During "work in progress ver. 2" I’m trying to work with a number of questions. How is my personal long-term photo project affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine? How should the project be shown/presented differently, now with the war going on for more than 6 months without any end in sight? For me as a daughter - how does the war affect my communication with my father? For me as an artist - how is my artistic practice affected by the war?
Olga Bushkova
Olga Bushkova is a visual artist living and working in Zürich. She was born and grew up in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. She graduated from Rostov State University with a master’s degree in Applied Mathematics. Right after her graduation in 2011 Olga moved to Zürich, following her husband who got a job in Google Switzerland. Since then she became active in the field of photography and has published two books: “A Google Wife'' (2017), and “How I tried to convince my husband to have children” (2020). Olga’s books have been shortlisted or awarded at such festivals like: AUTHOR Book Award and PHOTO-TEXT Book Award at Arles Les Rencontres de la photographie, UNSEEN Dummy Award, FIEBRE Dummy Award, etc.