In her project N/A (Not Applicable), Anastasia Tailakova deliberately works with a first-generation Kodak DC40 digital camera (1995, 0.38 megapixels). As a result, photographs taken between 2013 and 2022 evoke a sense of false memory: the images appear familiar, yet the source of that feeling remains elusive. In the permanent exhibition “Photography: Inventing Color”, this sense of familiarity is further reinforced by the presentation of the photographs on Kodak digital photo frames, devices that have long since been discontinued.

The conversation will also address the artist’s creative development and the influences that have shaped her practice over the past ten to fifteen years. Drawing on recent works from the series gunmental—an intentional play on words in which metal in the color name gunmetal grey is replaced with mental, referencing themes of mental health—we will discuss new directions and points of reference in contemporary photography.

Anastasia Tailakova was born in Kuibyshev (now Samara). In 2007, she graduated from Samara State University with a degree in Law. From 2007 to 2009, she studied in the Photography and Multimedia Art program at the Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia.

Moderator: Ekaterina Yushkevich, Head of the Exhibition Department at ROSPHOTO and curator.