The Long Way Home of Ivan Putnik, Truck Driver presents the collection of photographs and notes taken by a Russian truck driver while crossing Siberia and the Arctic circle for work.
What we found out, not without surprise, is that in those areas Google Street View is almost completely non-existent, and on Google Maps there are mostly spherical photographs, taken by common users, uploaded to the server and geolocated. A significant difference, on which we decided to focus on.
Putnik is indeed a fictional character, and all the images in the project are actually screengrabs we took from these spontaneous uploads. We built a story around the pictures, following the narrative characteristics of the visual diary, and thus merging the practices of adoption and resignification with the vero-fiction. The tool of the fictitious story served as a glue to the photographic material. It also brought out, against the background of the narrative, further noteworthy issues: “traveling” in the Arctic circle, we were struck by how marked the imprint of man is in these stark lands.
Although the work was born from the pure pleasure of continuing to wonder before the images, and although it was born without any intention of protest, some relevant issues have emerged. Issues which could be defined as environmental and political. Gas pipelines, ports, mines, uncontrolled exploitation of resources and movement of goods and materials.
All of this affects us, in such a flagrant way that sometimes you just have to click randomly on google maps to find it in front of you.
