Artist's Statement

Igor Tereshkov

Oil and Moss, dig. prints, 30-40cm.

At the summer of 2018 I arrived to KhMAO as a Greenpeace and #stopoilspill movement volunteer to shoot whats happens with indigenous people at the north territories full of oil producing.

There is about 1.5 million tons of oil are poured out annually to the environment in Russian, this figure is approximately twice the volume of the spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

About 50% of Russian oil produced in KhMAO, licensed areas often coincide with the places of residence of Indigenous Peoples.

Local oil workers joke about KhMAO, that this is one large licensed area for oil production.

Near Surgut in Russkinskaya vlg. I met Antonina Tevlina from Khanty people, her mother and father still live an indigenous way of life. Nomadize and grazing reindeers at their ancestral territory of about 600 hectares, they faced a new problem, oil producers came to their land.

Shot on 35mm film, oil-containing liquid from oil spills in KhMAO was used at the stage of film developing.

Oil randomly destroys gelatinous “flesh” of film deform it with holes and scratches exactly as harmed environment deformed under the oil spillage.

I plan to present my project with exhibition and installation in Moscow , make prints with optical enlarger, and make a maquette of book with real moss.