4th Biennale of Historical and Archival Photography from Russian Museums and Archives

The exhibition continues the Russian Museum project of the systematic display of Russian photography, which began in 2011, the purpose of which was to draw attention to the Russian photographic heritage.

Photographic collections of the largest museums in the country are well known. However, regional museums and archives in Russia also have significant collections of photographs. They include works by provincial photographers from amateur and family archives.

For a long time, these collections were on the periphery of the attention of specialists, without display and study, in closed archival files and funds and were not available to the general public. In the last decade, due to the increased interest in Russian history, the idea came up that not only the masterpieces of photographic art are worthy of research and audience recognition. "Ordinary" photographs that reflects the everyday life of a huge country are an essential part of visual culture, that captures the image of a bygone time.

The Biennale of Historical and Archival Photography once again presents inaccessible photo collections of regional museums. The exhibition will show 144 photographs from museums in Voronezh, Ivangorod, Nizhny Novgorod, Rybinsk, Ryazan, Simferopol, Omsk, Pskov, Uglich, Yakutsk. The exposition is structured as a consistent story about the cultural, everyday and political life of Russia in the 1870s - 1930s.