The village: Olya Ivanova reframes rural life in the Russian North

In the vast swathes of land that make up the Russian North, village life has all but disappeared. Photographer Olya Ivanova’s portraits of the inhabitants of Kich-Gorodok, taken in 2010, capture life in one of the many villages to have experienced depopulation. “I tried to shoot them in the same style as professional village photographers who were invited to take pictures of weddings, funerals, children and feasts from the beginning of the 20th century,” she says. In 2011, her photos were published in a book, Kich Village, alongside archive family portraits collected by art critic and anthropologist Anna Petrova. Ivanova has shot for publications including Monocle, the Guardian, the Financial Times and Vice. Her village project work will be part of the Photoquai photography festival in Paris this September.