The Depot

Single-channel video, 5’00”, 2012

We witness a series of architectural transformations of the old building that loses its identity when interacting with everyday life. The inexorable intrusion of modernity into the flesh of historical monument awakens convincing in its absurdity object.

Circular locomotive depot of the Nikolayev Railway that was built in Moscow in the middle of the 19th century has undergone many changes over of the years. From the depot, it has become a "rookery" which consists of shops, restaurants, warehouses, garages and just a dump. It was completely empty when I was making this film in 2012. Now the depot is under construction. We do not know what it will look like. The story goes on -  “ Depot (adaptation)” .

This visual essay narrates its story not in the conventional way film and documentary do – a linear progression of different images. Here,    likein a collage, development happens within one single image in order to keep the focus on the “main character”. In the specific, that of a dilapidated depot. Its massive architectural presence in the urban landscape has been ruined by man’s negligence against the corrosive power of time. But life, like a train, keeps going ahead on its tracks. Probably pointlessly if ruins and abandonment is all we leave behind.

Antonio Geusa, curator

P.S. The Depot  becomes an ongoing project because now it has been transformed, i.e. reconstructed. I will follow its reconstructions.