USSR - Carl De Keyzer

Carl de Keyzer visits the Soviet Union twelve times in one year (August '88 to August '89). De Keyzer is not tempted by fleeting photography. He travels through areas and finds himself in situations where any trace of change is barely noticeable. In the choices he makes and in his well-considered photography, he manages to capture an atmosphere that may soon become a thing of the past.

Carl de Keyzer began his career as a freelance photographer in 1982 while supporting himself as a photography teacher at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium. At the same time, his interest in the work of other photographers led him to become co-founder and director of the XYZ-Photography Gallery. In 1990 he was nominated for Magnum and in 1994 he became a full member. 

De Keyzer creates book and exhibition projects through an accumulative approach, using large and medium formats. Examples are Homo Sovieticus 1989 about the collapse of the Soviet Union, ZONA 2003 (a visit to 50 prison camps in Siberia), Trinity 2007 (a conceptual book about the trinity of power), DPR Korea (2017). His groundbreaking project God, Inc. I and II captured religious life on the margins of American society in 1992 and 2020.