Nadia Sablin An interview with Alexa Dilworth of the Center for Documentary Studies March 11, 2015
When did you leave Russia and when did you go back? I left Russia in September 1992, when I was twelve years old. The first time I went back was in 2008. I visited my childhood home in St. Petersburg and then went to the village to see my aunts.
How did you get started in photography? I was very bored in high school. Art was the most interesting thing that I tried. There was a photography class at my high school and got a D; it’s the only D I ever got. (I was a good student but not a very active one.) I hadn’t understood anything the teacher was saying, and wanted to vindicate myself by getting better at it, so I took a class at the community college. Photography came alive for me, I loved it, I loved the darkroom. That experience led me to enroll at the Cleveland Institute of Art, where I painted and made other kinds of art. But I kept going back to the community college to pursue photo—so I realized I needed to transfer to a school with a dedicated photography program. RIT had the best, and most intimate facilities, and the most involved students, so I went there. (Also my parents are immigrants, so their expectation was that if I was going to be a photographer I needed to learn how to make money —I was going to be a great commercial photographer. We know how that worked out.)
How did the project begin? When did you take the first photos, from the first visit? And how did the process work over the seven years—and did it change over time? I took pictures during my first visit—I had an idea to shoot a “little story.” But once I started I knew I had to keep going, that I wanted to capture the larger experience of being with them, in
the house, in the village. Taking pictures was also a way to reintroduce myself to my aunts—to share what I do. In the beginning I asked them to pose. To unbraid their hair or rearrange the furniture and do a puzzle—to recreate memories I had from childhood. I had traveled in the Carpathian Mountains a couple of years before returning to Russia, and I knew from being there that the way the light looked in my memories wasn’t imagined, it existed. And that was true when I went back to the village. The light is incredibly beautiful. So the quality of light in the photographs is both real and imagined, in a way. I was using a medium-format SLR film camera, a Pentax 672, with a tripod, so setting up poses, scenes, made sense, but it also took a lot of time, and they have chores to do, they are always on to the next thing. But it worked out well because I realized I wanted to photograph them moving, working, anyway, so I moved to a digital SLR camera. I didn’t have to struggle with technique, everything was faster, in focus. The small, handheld camera made it easier for us to get to know each other, as well—my face was visible, so it was easier for me to be present in the moment, engaging with them. So the work went from being a “performance,” an invention, to being more observational. The digital camera was the right tool at the right time. “Aunties” was my first digital project, and I still work mainly with film.
So are the photographs documentary or fiction or both? I think they’re both documents and fictions. I’m not a journalist, I’m not interested in only getting the facts right. The photographs are interpretations of truth; re-interpretations of what happens. And they are imbued with a certain romantic sensibility. Early on, I’d ask them to do things, like puzzles, as I mentioned, or for instance, in the photograph where my aunt is wearing a flower ring on her head, I asked her to do that. She’d never make one or wear it on her own. But it is real to me, to how I experience being there. It’s real and it’s magical. Magical realism. And of course, I want to make photographs at different times of the season, to capture all their activities and moods. But not only all the things they do, all the things I remember. I pick and choose—I’ll call them up if I’m in St. Petersburg and ask what they’re up to; if they say strawberry picking, I may wait a little longer, for blueberry picking, or something else, because I know what I’m still wanting to photographer. One summer, they were building things and in
almost every picture they were holding axes. I don’t feel the need to photograph the lumberyard or the fence repairs now.
Did your aunts tell you what photographs you could use, or were they hands off? They’ve never nixed any of the photos, but one of them will say, “Don’t take my picture right now.” That’s as far as they go. They’re proud of me and the project, but they’re also very shy. It’s hard for them to be watched, it can sometimes be uncomfortable, but they are happy I’m there, and I think they also secretly like being photographed and enjoy the pictures. They will never take any money from me, which is sometimes frustrating. They’re very proud. But a couple of summers ago, when I was about to leave I tucked some money into a mock-up of the book that I’d made. I left the book on the table, and it remained untouched while I was still there. The minute they saw me off, they ran home to look at the book. I know because they called to chide me about the money. When they do comment, they’ll crack up and say things like, “Who are those old fools?”
What are your influences, photographically, artistically? When I was a kid in the village, I would be very bored at times, so I began to read. That’s really where books happened for me, in the attic of my aunt’s house, which is where I’ve always stayed. I’m much more influenced by writers than artists or photographers. My favorite writers are Mikhail Bulgakov, Gabriel García Márquez, and Haruki Murakami. Magical Realism. A talking cat or a rain of marigolds makes so much sense to me, because that’s how I experience the village—or maybe it becomes true of the village in my photographs. It’s, again, both real and imagined. A process of forgetting and remembering. Life there isn’t easy, there are hard realities that jar me when I first get back—there’s so much labor in everything—but then my memories and my imagination kick in again, and it begins to transform into a magical place all over again.
Tell me about why you saw the body of work as a book, why the book is important to you. The village, my aunts’ house, is where books became real to me, as real as my own life. And my aunts’ life is so bound to the cyclical nature of things. The photographs need to have a beginning, middle, and end. They are story. That needs to be tangible, that you can hold in your hands and feel. An exhibit isn’t intimate or friendly. That's what a book is for.