Pastoral by Alexander Gronsky is an idea of a perfect world, where people integrate with nature as its necessary part. This documentary photography project explores wastelands surrounding Moscow.
The Estonian photographer sought the perfect world where man and nature are in absolute symbiosis. He explores this quest in the suburbs of Moscow. In this latest opus, Alexander Gronsky shows Muscovites ability to transform themselves as soon as they leave their city. He thus gives a new definition of the bucolic universe: picnics by the river, meetings between lovers, swimming sessions close to the megalopolis, unorthodox tanning moments. In these scenes, the artist tries to render the menacing and austere shadows of the nearby buildings invisible. Hence, the human beings photographed here seem disconnected from the reality, alluded to in the somber background.
"I needed to find a space that belonged neither to nature, nor to mankind. A city’s periphery is a frontier between the lived-in spaces and chaos, neither urban nor rural, without a specific name."
