The Periphery (2024) is a 2-year photo-documentary project exploring the spaces of the southern former constituent republics of the Soviet Union which are known today as the South Caucasus and Central Asia*: Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. 33 years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the average citizen lives at roughly the same or worse level of quality of life that the average citizen did in 1991. Poverty, lack of accessible healthcare, hollowed-out infrastructure, brain-drain, and endemic corruption continue to weigh heavily on the average citizen.
This project draws its name from World Systems Theory, in one of its central tenets - the periphery. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was one of two bipolar powers in the world. While both the north and south of the USSR experienced setbacks after the collapse, the southern USSR, in particular, suffered the most significant decline, shifting from a core country (highest socioeconomic status) to a peripheral one (lowest socioeconomic status). Average citizens of the southern former USSR went from creating some of the world's most advanced technologies (like rocket propulsion, heavy industry, nuclear power) to cannibalizing their own neighborhoods to live an ever-worsening subsistence.
Now surrounded by two hegemonic neighbors (China and Russia), there has since existed a vicious cycle characterized by the exploitation of human capital and natural resources - yet the average citizen sees little of the return for this costly price. This project attempts to show the strength, beauty, and sorrow of the people of the South Caucasus and Central Asia through the stark reality of post-Soviet spaces.
* The notable country missing from this project is Turkmenistan, which in 2024 is a totalitarian security state, meaning that this kind of project is not possible there.
