Morgan Meis sifts through a series of personal portraits from the Soviet Bloc:
In a contemporary culture in which we are constantly told about the virtue of creating
our own identities, of making ourselves whoever we want to be, it is striking to see the self-presentation of human beings living in a society that did not recognize that same virtue. The idea that each human being is in charge of his or her own identity, his or her own “brand,” did not exist behind the Iron Curtain. You had to play your public role, you had to utter the public lies, and then the rest of the time, the stakes dropped way down. There wasn't much further pressure to be this or that.
(Photo: "#14" from Nikolay Bakharev's "Relationship" series, 1989.)
The Dish 