Image Diplomacy
28'55'', color, English
During the Cold War both sides used photographic exhibitions as a tool to promote their political visions. While the USSR came up with the original format of a portable kit exposition, the United States assembled one ambitious show that toured the globe.
The film documents the battle waged between the two ideological blocs in the field of “exhibition diplomacy” and gives an insight into the unwritten history of Soviet soft power and socialist internationalism. It compares the forgotten archival materials left behind in Europe from the Soviet photographic exhibitions and films with the American Family of Man exhibition, on display today at Luxembourg’s Clervaux Castle and included in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.
“Image Diplomacy” deals with history and the materials from which it is made. Dedicated to the re-composition of facts and narratives considered obsolete or forgotten, it ruminates over the question: Why do we look at the past?
vladislavshapovalov.com/
