THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

Like the Central Asian nomads and migrants whose movements constantly frustrated Russian colonial authorities’ attempts to pin them down under the border regine, Prokudin-Gorsky’s framing of the world required a deathly stillness that never comported with reality.  Should something move, should the wind blow too forcefully, or should anything happen to the delicate glass slide once the photograph was taken — then only ghosts would remain.

Eisen/Prokudin-Gorsky, 2022