The pictures radiate cold, although it’s not always just snow: the photographer Gregory Sailer photographed villages and towns that actually aren’t towns. It’s more of a no-brainer. An absurd world of fakes, copies and backdrops in the service of politics and business.
The photographer, born in Tyrol in 1980, visited villages in Europe, the USA, China and Russia that are also known as Potemkin villages. Assemblies of buildings without any life, without people, without everyday life.
The Villages of Grigori Alexandrovich Potemkin
The myth says that the term Potemkin village goes back to the Russian Field Marshal Imperial Prince Grigory Alexandrovich Potemkin. Before she traveled through the newly conquered Crimea in 1787, the favorite of Tsarina Catherine the Great is said to have had whole villages built along the way with painted scenery to hide the true, run-down face of the region.
Sailer has traveled to military combat training centers in the US and Europe, to detailed replicas of European cities in China, or vehicle test cities in Sweden. His photographs appear reduced, monochrome and oppressive to the viewer. They are a reflection of their time, in which the spread of fake news via social media channels has become fashionable.
In his illustrated book “The Potemkin Village”, published by Kehrer Verlag appeared, he takes us into an unreal world.
Also look at the following series of photos:
– Lost Places at the End of the World: Bluie East Two, the abandoned Air Force Base on Greenland
– Shipbreaking Yard in Aliağa: This is what the cruise ship slaughterhouse looks like
– Discarded and abandoned ships, cars, locomotives and jets: These are the most fascinating wrecks in the world