“A Personal History of Soviet Space Exploration is a project that conflates public and personal histories. Roy and Dorothy French were keen tourists who embarked on a number of package tours through Europe, Asia and America during the 1960s. Roy recorded their trips using a stills camera and 35mm transparency film. Completely untrained in the art of stills photography, he was repeatedly drawn to the same subjects – monuments, fountains, car parks, empty streets and hotels – often with his wife featured in the shot. He supplemented his own images by purchasing 35mm slides of more monuments and the outsides of historic buildings, apparently disinterested in anything that might be found inside them, such as people, food or art. On their return to Pearl Beach Roy staged “slide nights” showing relatives evidence of the couple’s travels. It was at these evenings that my understanding of what the world looked like first formed. Yuri Gagarin by contrast was for a time the most famous man in the world. As the cosmonaut who in 1961 became the first man in space Gagarin travelled the world meeting government dignitaries and workers alike, celebrating the supremacy of the Soviet space program and the communist way of life. After his accidental death in an air crash in 1968, Gagarin faded from public memory, save for those interested in space history and the visual record of his achievement” – Andrew Frost
Alaska Projects October 1-12, 2014
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