For five years before 2005 Jonas Bendiksen spent a great deal of his time exploring the periphery of the former Soviet Union, traveling in isolated territories coloured by unrest and restructuring problems following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. There was little Moscow could do to hinder the emergence of fifteen autonomous states. But the transition to a new social order was far from easy.
In Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia and the eastern part of Serbia Bendiksen found outposts where people had to redefine themselves in relation to a new historical, religious and ideological reality. Mixed results have ensued; bloody internal conflicts, isolated pariah states, self-constructed versions of capitalism and depopulation.
The Satellites exhibition recounts stories from six places which existed under the world’s radar, but which together represent unfinished chapters in the history of the Soviet Union.
