The Artek project began in 1994 with my desire to document the biggest pioneer summer camp in former Soviet Union. I had proposed the subject to Liberation Magazine which made it possible. I tried to depict the multiple specific activities of the camp. Some years later, other magazines from France and Germany sent me to that camp again in assignments.
Step by step I conceived a project to make a series more specifically on adolescence, not caring any more about the activities but on the contrary about the “slow times”, the “empty times” that are so specific to teenagers, and that they use to develop their dreams.
The final series and the book are the result of a mix of all these works.
Claudine Doury