Jan Banning: Red Utopia

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

After the fall of the Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, communism seems to have disappeared into the obscurity of history.

Photographer Jan Banning documents with his Red Utopia series the still-living remnants of this ideology, which had such a major influence on the twentieth century, in various far-flung corners of the world from our perspective.

From 14 October 2017 until 7 January 2018, the photo series can be seen at Museum de Fundatie in Zwolle. A book has also been published under the same title.

Jan Banning (1954) went looking for locations in five countries, India, Italy, Nepal, Portugal and Russia, where the communist spirit still lingers and even still holds sway.

In cities and sometimes remote towns, he used his camera to capture the interiors of communist party offices with their often exuberant iconography: red flags and banners, and portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao, as well as national party leaders and ideologues.

Sometimes local party activists were photographed too. Sitting behind their desks, they look into the lens with concentration. Jan Banning's photographs are characterised by a careful handling of composition and light.

Jan Banning

Book: Red Utopia

He found heroic images in dilapidated offices. When you see the context in which communist propaganda now stands, it does become rather pitiful. You see a huge discrepancy between what you see on the wall and the dusty surroundings. I found that an interesting tension.

The book can be ordered from Jan Banning's website and costs 49.50 euros.

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