René Nuijens Photographs the Icons that Celebrate Yuri Gagarin, and then Some
Ciao René, how are you?
Good!
What is photography for you?
Photography is a way of expressing myself.
What is Yuri Gagarin Monuments about?
It’s part of an ongoing project I work on with writer Steve Korver called Road to Gagarin. By visiting and documenting the major settings of Yuri Gagarin’s bizarre and dramatic life we aim to capture the essence of both the man who is dead and the myth that is still very much alive. The monuments are very fascinating sculptures, souvenirs from the Soviet time. Some still have a heroic appearance, some are dilapidated; some are of great artistic values, some are quite kitsch. For our project we also made 4 dry comical short films dedicated to Yuri Gagarin, had several art shows and published a photo-booklet with a selection of 10 Gagarin monuments.
Where can you be found online?
At my website, on Instagram, Twitter and Vimeo.
You might also like
Berlin, 5AM — Gergana Petrova Photographs the Nightlife of Germany’s Capital City
The Edge — Philip Cheung Photographs the New Face of the United Arab Emirates
Women of God — Sara Hylton Portrays the Indian Women Marked by the Stigma of ‘Untouchability’
Inside the Hotel Polana, a Decaying Resort That Used to Be a Base of the Communist Party
Keep looking...
FotoFirst — Gender Shifts Are Terrifying American Straight White Men, Shawn Bush’s Photos Say
FotoFirst — Federico Vespignani Follows a Youth Gang of One of the World’s Most Violent Cities
Atsushi Momoi Uses His Computer’s Screensaver to Visualize How Memory Works
Sem Langendijk Documents The Squatters That Established Their Community in Amsterdam’s Docklands
FotoFirst — Michael Radford Researches the Visual Foundations of the ‘Machine of Whiteness’
FotoFirst — Yana Kononova Explores How Weather Changes Can Affect Our Mood
Indoor Voices — Hannah Altman Takes Healing Portraits of Herself with Her Mother
