"Internal Empire" by Andrey Troitsky

From March 23 to April 17, the Gallery of Classical Photography will host an exhibition of Andrey Troitsky’s multimedia project "Internal Empire".

Andrey Troitsky’s new project is an attempt to discover and recreate the images of collective memory that fill us and are dissolved in the unconscious. This is a story about the territory of our consciousness, in which there is a war. She is outside and she is inside. For two thousand years, civilization has waged two thousand wars - this is a reflection of our inner world.

Here is what the author himself says about this project:

“I had the feeling that my memory contains much more than it was in my life, as if the memories were not my own, but from some distant past. In fact, it is in each of us. I wanted to see, feel these images from the unconscious and show them. This is a huge space that is inside us, but which we hardly know.”

The project, with the help of images and texts, tells about a journey in the space of memory, which the author gave the name "Inland Empire". According to the author, the empire has always been a way of uniting people into a social building, but by uniting them, it closes the possibility for a person to contact with himself, inevitably creating a territory of "internal war". The author tells us the stories of poets, politicians, executioners, artists and lovers. They are not named, and viewers can guess behind the images of certain historical figures.

Guo Jing, curator of the Beijing Photo Festival and Global Photographic Union, shared her impressions about the project:

“When you watch the series “Internal Empire” by Andrey Troitsky, you imagine the stories told by two characters created by the photographer. These are love stories and revelations about human nature, but also visual commentary on historical events. Contemplating the images of the project, the viewer can suddenly find himself in every frame. Then the photographs begin to resonate in him, and he encounters the true events depicted in these stories. If a photograph becomes the viewer’s or their loved one’s own story, then it is more than just a photograph, it is an image of the collective memory of all viewers. This is a smart project. "Internal Empire" is another attempt by Andrey Troitsky to explore visual language. Personally, some of the works were difficult for me to understand, but this is a successful series.

The exhibition includes 27 large-scale photographic works, accompanied by texts and music specially written for the exhibition. The filming of the project took place in 2021 in St. Petersburg.

Andrey Troitsky is a producer and photographer. Prize-winner at the Tokyo Photo Festival, winner of the first place at the Monovision Photography Awards.

The curator of the exhibition is Evgeny Berezner.