Les Boutographies 2015 : André Lützen, Zhili Byli

As a sequence “Zhili Byli” (Once upon a time…) combines images of contemporary living and housing conditions with a series of portraits of residents from the city of Arkhangelsk. The city in northwest Russia is plunged into freezing temperatures for eight months a year, sometimes as low as 40 degrees below zero. The climate makes for an extreme contrast between indoor and outdoor life. Inside pre-fab buildings or wooden houses residents have created cave-like havens of intimacy and comfort where they spend most of the year, while the world on the outside seems strangely neglected.