Gorodok by Anastasia Khoroshilova

Artwork Description

Original title of the artwork: Городок / Village

In 2005, Anastasia Khoroshilova had just completed her studies under Jörg Sasse at the renowned Folkwang School in Essen. When she heard that some of the child hostages were coming to Germany with their parents to recuperate at Bad Tölz in Bavaria, she went to spend a week with the survivors. However, as she reported, nobody was able to talk about the catastrophe. The children did play, but they seemed to have been turned to stone. So she asked their parents’ permission to take their photographs. For this series, ​Out of Context, the children were put into their Sunday best, sometimes even their national costume. In this new self­depiction, however, there is an evident discrepancy between the new environment – a landscape of unspoiled mountains and meadows – and the person in the self­presentation, bewildered and helpless at the prospect of possible self­discovery.

This interest in social groups is anchored in Khoroshilova’s own history. After perestroika, her parents sent her to a boarding school in northern Germany when she was only fifteen years old. Here she came to know a quite different school system where opinions were openly expressed, and at the same time became familiar with the isolation of boarding­school life. With this change and her voluntary exile, she developed her insight into the Others, the minorities.