Mary Berridge

November 1, 2001 - December 1, 2001

For the spring and summer of 1998, Berridge lived in Moscow and returned to America just before the Russian economy collapsed. In an effort to make sense of an overwhelming and impenetrable city, Berridge set out with her camera to photograph Muscovites enjoying the warmer months outdoors. The result is a series of color photographs that convey a sense of not only Soviet culture, but of a people emerging from a not yet distant oppressive Soviet rule, eager to experience life as more self-empowering and enjoyable. Berridge’s images capture the contradictory forces ever-present in Moscow: Europe and Asia, residual communism and budding capitalism, Orthodoxy and pop culture–all locked in an uneasy and shifting equilibrium..