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In autumn 2000 it was worth visiting the National Galerie im Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart. It was there that following the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and the Ludwig Museum in Budapest, After the Wall global project representing 155 artists from all countries of new Europe was being exhibited. The brick-thick black-and-white volumes of the catalogue were stylised to resemble Khrushchov’s tomb-stone by Ernst Neizvestny. Art and Culture in post-Communist Europe brought together the cream of contemporary art. Three of the five Belarusian participants were photo artists. Suddenly I got feeling of déjà vu. It occurred to me that I had already seen some of the pictures at the Fotografie aus Minsk exhibition held at the renowned Berlin ifa-Galerie in 1994.
I was talking with Sergey Kozhemyakin, a participant in these exhibitions, over a cup of coffee in Minsk.
My first question was about the Childish  Album (1989), a series of kids’ portraits printed from old time-scratched films thrown away by a photo studio in Minsk. In the black-and-white pictures you could see children dressed up in clothes showing an eclectic mixture of styles, from Russian kokoshniks and hussar uniforms of Napoleon times to the present-day Russian military uniforms and emblems. The absurdity monotonously repeated over and over again by the hack photographer features the kid’s state of mind, creating a unique image of … totalitarian society, where people should all be as alike as two peas, deprived of any personality. “The outward looks become part and parcel of your ego, commanding you how to behave and what to do. The series brings about a horrible idea – these photos are but a tiny detail in a huge mechanism to annihilate the individual,” said Valery Lobko, a legendary figure, father of all now well know Belarusian photo artist. Ten years later David Elliott, director of Moderna Museet, couldn’t help including Children’s Album into his project.
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