“Slav Gaze” reflects on Eastern European culture as seen on social media. In many post-Soviet countries, there is a tendency for people to post pictures of luxurious meals, to show how well they are dressed, or to display the latest fancy item they’ve purchased. A psychologist once suggested that this tendency stems from a deep craving for beauty, born out of the “ugliness” that surrounds people from the post-Soviet territories - primarily the brutalist grey architecture. Such aesthetic of everyday life can feel harsh or bleak. Drawing from this context, I believe that our culture is beautiful in its own way, and I try to embrace it through this project. These landscapes, with their rawness and history, form an essential part of our identity and stay with us forever, no matter how much we try to distract ourselves from them.
