The Innermost

 In a project, developed in collaboration with an actor and producer Kamil Tukaev, a photo-artist Aleksey Bychkov visualizes Platonov’s “innermost” man. 

This character ponders and doubts, sometimes suffers and starves, he senses the flow of life with his skin, feels himself an integral part of the huge world and the people inhabiting it. One comes across the innermost man in Platonov’s different works, not only in the eponymous novella. It abounds in understatement and generalization, muted expression with little regard for detail, and yet, makes it possible to identify a contemporary man.  

Who is he, this vessel of the Innermost – a wise man, a martyr, a prophet or just a physiological landscape? An actor of Voronezh Chamber Theatre Boris Goloschapov has become the face and body of Platonov’s universal character.

Aleksey Bychkov, a young photographer, cameraman and director from Voronezh, studied in the Russian State Institute of Cinematography named after S. A. Gerasimov (VGIK). He has worked as a cameraman at “Russia-1”, “Russia-2”, OTR, “Culture” and other channels. As a photography director, he participated in filming “Rita’s Last Fairytale” movie, directed by Renata Litvinova. He also worked as a director and cameraman on a short feature film about Samuil Marshak “Natanelle” (2016), filmed in Voronezh. 

«Pukhov was walking with pleasure, feeling, as before, the kinship between his body and all the other bodies. » 

Andrey Platonov, «The Innermost Man» 

«Clothes are always taken away so that they remain because, unlike people, they are a shame to waste»                                                                                                                                           Andrey Platonov, « The Foundation Pit »

«Next to the last hut there was sitting a naked man, his creased skin hanging in folds like old, distressed clothing; he was picking at reed stalks in his lap trying to make a piece of houseware or an ornament »                                                                                                                   Andrey Platonov , «Djan»