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agrotown. If I had decided to live there myself, I would have to say
goodbye to all my dreams, which are now, by the way, gradually
turining into reality. In the agrotown the pace of my life would be
quiet and slow, I would be caught up by the everyday routine, but,
on the other hand, maybe I would be happy in something else."
The project, which at first glance may seem a simple documentation
of the agro residents’ everyday life, poses present and future
generations of the Belaruisans questions of a much higher order
where the key issue is certainly that of making life choices. Together
with choosing between the city and the pseudo «agro»-comfort,
the young people choose between struggle, desire for change,
movement, on the one hand, and submissiveness, «a parent comfort
zone» and stability — on the other, which are virtually synonymous
to stagnation. Since the city in today’s realities is not only constantly
changing rules of the survival game, but also a rich cultural life, new
contacts and a plenty of opportunities for growth.
When looking at the «Agro» images, we seem to be travelling back
in time a couple of decades ago on the invisible time machine.
Here is a woman in plastic slippers worn barefoot who is checking
zucchini, here are the children sitting under the Orthodox icon in the
plush chair, or a girl in a pink sports uniform with a dog on a leash.
The world of «agro» froze in the hibertation mode «until better
times», clearly showing the triumph of stability. The exceptions,
and together with them the hopes for change, appear only in a few
pictures, and among them there is «a visiting card» of the project —
a sort of the ceremonial portrait with a serious and at the same time
gentle couple of the young people from Zaskavichi posing against
the background of a new car.
Will reaching the stage of financial stability become a prerequisite
for moving to the next level of needs? Will the young couple drive
this car to the city in search of something else? Will a new culture of
«agro-generation» get born on the ruins of the abandoned village
«dom kultury», and what will it look like then? Time will answer these
questions. In the meantime, in Siarhiej Leskiec’s photos next to the
Orthodox icon above the heads of the kids in a plush armchair there
is a wall clock hanging and the time it shows has got frozen.
Сяргей Лескець. Агра, фотапраект. 2013–2015. З архіву аўтара
Siarhej Leskiec. Agro photo-project. 2013–2015. From the author’s archives
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