Ikuru Kuwajima Wins Photobookfest Prize for "I, Oblomov"

Ikuru Kuwajima is a Japanese photographer and artist who has been living in Russia for the past ten years and creating books with photographs and texts over the past several. His latest, I, Oblomov, is his interpretation of contemporary Russia and other post-Soviet countries through the concept of Oblomovshchina. The project consists of interior pictures, self-portraits, and quotes from Ivan Goncharov's novel Oblomov, both in the original Russian and in my English translation. 

This creative take on Russia and Oblomovshchina has just won first prize at Photobookfest!  The prize money will allow for the publication of several hundred copies with the unusual pillow-like cover you see in the photograph. I'm thrilled to be a small part of this unlikely project!