
Elsbeth Tijssen (1974)
Misha slaapt (2003)
photo, 66 x 99 cm
Elsbeth Tijssen has a background as a journalistic photographer. In this documentary series, we see a family in Minsk, Belarus. Tijssen lived here for several weeks and captured the daily living environment of the family members. We see their housing complex, their interior, their family life and the train journey to their dacha. Here we, Western viewers, might suspect poverty, melancholy and a low standard of living. But the family seems to experience the opposite. They are happy, experience themselves as rich and are optimistic about life. Tijssen seems to be telling us that happiness is a relative term.
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