In a previous project, Tiksi, which portrays the town as “a kind of wonderland”, Arbugaeva, who was awarded the Leica Oskar Barnack Award in 2013 for the work, plays on the lightness of the region; Weather man is, by comparison, visually and emotionally much darker. “Tiksi is very white and light – in terms of the colour palette, emotions and atmosphere. But the Arctic region is not always like that. In winter it’s very dark and lonely, and you feel very isolated when you’re there. I took most of my images for Weather man during the polar night, to show the darker aspects of the Arctic. It was a challenge photographically – how do you photograph without light? But it’s interesting because you see all kinds of shades and muted colours – it’s almost monochromatic. I wanted to show the Arctic as a place where a person can escape from reality, from the world.”
The experience has had an enduring influence on the way she makes images, says Arbugaeva, and Korotki played no small part in this. “He didn’t seem to care about the immediate things, there was a quietness about him, and he was very comfortable to be around,” she says. “When you’re in someone’s life, you have to appreciate the moments you get, try to forget about who you are and blend in; observe. Every project changes you in a way,” she adds. “Especially ones that you voluntarily put yourself into. I would love to think about this project as part of an emotional kaleidoscope of the region, made up of several stories where each has a different emotional colour. That’s the big idea, but I need to work on it for a long time.”
See more of Evgenia’s work here.
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