Elian Somers, BORDER THEORIES, 2013

By using photography and historical documentation, Elian Somers investigates in ‘Border Theories’ the relationship between architecture, politics and historyin three Russian cities. In the 20th century Birobidzhan, Kaliningrad and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk were designed, built and redeveloped under the Soviet regime, with the utopian vision of a socialist city as the guiding principle. By examining their development, Somers reveals how visions of urban planners, nourished by political convictions, could control but never fully overwrite a city and its history. Texts by Elian Somers, Hester van Gent and Kerstin Winking.