Kristoffer HEGNSVAD
Korean Premiere
Canadian photographer Christopher Herwig travels former Soviet Republics from Ukraine to Uzbekistan, Armenia to Far Eastern Siberia, and all points in between, in a decades-long bus stop treasure hunt across more than 50,000 kilometres. Uncovering the stories of the designers who built fascinating architectural marvels during the Soviet regime, Soviet Bus Stops is an ode to the power of individual creativity that would not be suppressed.
There is a photographer who looks for bus stops that were built during the former Soviet Union. The bus stops he found have different designs depending on the designer¡¯s taste and environment beyond the reach of the federal authority. Soviet Bus Stops uses poems to show the achievement of these structures. The bus stops are practical yet aesthetic. The bus stops are the expression of life¡¯s diversity that criticizes the uniformity created by capitalist commercial logic like the communist ideology. ¡°Soviet¡± was differentiated from bourgeois-democratic parliamentary, and was an institution organized and operated voluntarily by the people. The bus stops show the history of escaping from totalitarianism without knowing capitalism, and they are the remains proving ¡°Soviet¡± instead of ¡°Soviet Union¡±.
Kristoffer HEGNSVAD
Kristoffer Hegnsvad is a director, writer, and producer, known for Laamb (2013) and Looking for Exits: Conversations with a Wingsuit Artist (2016). He is the chief editor of film and television at Dagbladet Politiken, Denmark¡¯s biggest daily newspaper, and the author of the award-winning book Werner Herzog (2021).