I’ll be late tonight
Roxana Savin
Selfpublished
2021
Switzerland
Geneva
Alla Mirovskaya
Alla Mirovskaya
Roxana Savin, essay by Clare Bottomley
Longo A.G.
Longo A.G., Bolzano, Italy
Longo A.G., Bolzano, Italy
Magno Volume 115 g/m²
978-2-8399-3191-5
67
Magno Volume 115 g/m²
Debossed fabric hardcover
‘I’ll be late tonight’, the debut monograph of Romanian photographer Roxana Savin, was shortlisted at Untitled Dummy Awards Russia 2020 and Encontros Da Images Photobook Award 2021.
Inspired by her experience of living as an expatriate woman in a gated residence in Russia, Savin’s narrative as a homemaker in a foreign place sparks an inquiry on identity, on finding meaning and purpose. Her portrayal of the expatriate community, set against the snowy Russian winters, reflects on and questions contemporary gender roles and the larger power structures in capitalist society.
Images of stark interiors, all in impeccable order, alternate with austere snow-bleached landscape, and portraits of the housewives and mothers in the community, who devote their efforts to domestic duties and raising the family. The appearance of perfection of family life is disrupted by a sense of tension which hints to words left unspoken, and feelings concealed behind ritualised everyday gestures.
With ‘I’ll be late tonight’, Savin embraces the stillness of photography to create an uncanny space, suspended between beauty and fragility.
