…and potentially dangerous / 1984... (2015)

I took these photographs at metro stations in Moscow, Russia. Each station is equipped with a baggage scanner like those used in airports, and a security officer can stop any passenger at their discretion to scan a bag or backpack.

“For your protection” — that’s how it’s officially explained. Yet in all these years, I’ve never seen anything dangerous on those screens. And I don’t know of a single case where these scanners have helped prevent a threat.

When I photographed the scanner screens, I was often stopped by security officers — even though I wasn’t breaking any rules. I got used to these attempts at detention. Each time the same questions were repeated, like a broken record: “Why are you taking pictures?”, “Who are you taking them for?”, “Where will these photos be used?”

I always explained that I was just a photographer, taking pictures for myself, that I wasn’t a journalist — but they almost never believed me. So I changed tactics and began asking questions myself: “What do you think I’m doing here? Why do you think I’m photographing?” The answer was always the same: “You’re planning a terrorist attack — this is a matter for the police.”

The function of these devices is double-edged. They are meant to ensure safety, yet at the same time they reproduce the very idea of threat — sustaining a constant sense of danger on which the logic of control depends. Thus, the rhetoric of protection turns into a disciplinary gesture, directed inward, where attention quietly shifts from external danger to internal obedience.