BA (Hons) Photographic Arts
BA (Hons) Photographic Arts
MAJOR PROJECT PROPOSAL
Name
Sofia Topchishvili
Project Title (or working title)
Don’t Call Me Vodka
Subject / Concept
The subject for this project is to explore retrospective nostalgia from my Russian childhood. Taking photojournalistic approach, the concept for this project is to recollect memory from my hometown by photographing and conducting interviews with Russian people that share similar experience living in Saratov but who come from different backgrounds, age and class. This project is a continuation for the DON’T CALL ME VODKA, a journey that started for me back in 2017. Continuing this project, I would want to focus more on post-Soviet social groups in Russia such as working class, convicts, and elderly. The other subject change would be shifting from political angles to more social and personal approach.
Aims
This time there are two main aims for this project, personal – aiming to photograph and recollect memory from the time that I used to live in Russia and to record and conduct interviews with Russian people from different backgrounds around Saratov. Through this on-going project I want to highlight the notion how people live in my city and the change that happened since 90s. Aiming to depict that the majority of Russian people really struggle to survive because of the political oppression that comes from the never-ending external sanctions and never changing presidency. The aim is to explore and revisit sites around Saratov that I have shot before as well as extending and perfecting quality of film prints. Thus, the most important aim is to do justice to my people through my art.
Context / Audience
Through this on-going project I want to depict real life of people that live in Russian Federation. Growing up in Russia I never paid much attention towards life that we as Russian’s live, until I moved to Western World. As this project will be exhibited in London and knowing this from day one I wanted to show true survival that people go through on daily basis in Russia by conducting interviews with them about their life in Saratov, about political and social dilemmas that affect their daily life. The aim for my viewers to have their own “punctum” experience while they engage with prints and installation – to have that nostalgic recollections with objects that on their own do not mean much but for each viewer represent something more.
Proposed form, medium, presentation
Initially thinking that I could change the medium for this project – I wanted to shift from 35mm to medium format, however after long decision making I had to go back to 35mm. The main reasons are – this project is photojournalistic which means the camera has to be fast and semi-automated, it has to be small and quite light for it to be fit into my pocket. The 35mm camera that I would be using is semi-automated Olympus M [mju:]-1. Concerning the prints and the vision I have for my project that later would be exhibited – I want to create different sized c-type prints. Producing minimum 4 large c-type prints and multiple different sized small prints with handwritten notes and quotes all framed up and depicted tougher in the exhibition. Additionally, if I would have enough time I would try to do short video’s that later I would edit out almost as a VHR style. The possibility of the video to be exhibited as an installation in the exhibition – and played in the old square TV on top of the vodka bottles installation.








