Aleksey Kondratyev Captures ‘Ice Fishers’

Born in Kyrgyzstan’s capital city Bishkek, Kondratyev currently lives in Los Angeles and works between the continents of North America and Central Asia. His experimental documentary approach, in which he hones in on a particularly endearing aspect of a landscape or social occurrence, has led the young photographer to “I was interested in the aesthetic forms of these improvised protective coverings”the sides of the Ishim River. In temperatures as low as minus forty degrees, Kazakh fishermen shelter in solitary domes of reused plastic packaging, their figures and tools revealed only as blurs in the translucent material. In a statement about his ‘Ice Fishers’ series, Kondratyev explains, “I was interested in examining the aesthetic forms of these improvised protective coverings and the way in which they function as inadvertent sculptures. I chose to focus on the materials and their surfaces as signifiers of underlying global influence and the improvisation that occurs from economic necessity.”