Book Review: The Long Way Home of Ivan Putnik, Truck Driver
Vaste Programme, The Long Way Home of Ivan Putnik, Truck Driver. Courtesy of Eriskay Connection
Written by: Andy Dion
Trucking is an industry affixed to the international economy, a lucrative bedrock of opportunity for many, and a necessary means for many businesses to survive and thrive. The idea of trucking carries the notion of adventure — of conquest. Oftentimes, a sole driver traverses great lengths to deliver goods, necessary and luxury, to a never ending torrent of consumers. Their job is adventurous, sometimes dangerous, but more than anything, quite lonely. Beyond the mounting necessity of trucking, it bears ever-growing environmental implications.
Vaste Programme, The Long Way Home of Ivan Putnik, Truck Driver. Courtesy of Eriskay Connection
The Long Way Home of Ivan Putnik, Truck Driver, offers a glimpse into the photographic life of the titular Ivan, a truck driver from Russia, as he treks the vast barren landscapes of Siberia. But there’s a catch: Ivan Putnik is a fictional character made up by Italian artist collective Vaste Programme. The project materialized from the group’s fascination with Google Street View images and found landscape photographs. These images, cold and sweeping, were filled with character but no story, and thus emerged Ivan — the glue melding the collection together into a curiously personal road journal.
Vaste Programme, The Long Way Home of Ivan Putnik, Truck Driver. Courtesy of Eriskay Connection
Ivan’s trucking routes illustrated in The Long Way Home are resoundingly sparse, punctuated with moments of squalid quietude and flashes of the world’s wasting arteries. While trekking through the Siberian badlands and near-Arctic reaches, Ivan steps out of his 16 wheeler to find moments of respite and contemplation. In some shots, the man can be seen in the form of a shadow. His self-portraiture is willingly sequestered to how the world sees him: obscured as if deep inside a tinted window. He captures lush landscapes, complicated by wheel tracks decentering natural horizon lines. In one such photo, a fresh tan dirt road materializes in the valley of a network of sweeping snow-capped mountains. While Ivan’s travels do impact the environment, he isn’t the only one tearing up forgotten soils. Many images feature oil veins spouting flames into the setting sun — reminders of the plodding fossil fuel industry that provides Ivan with the gas needed to complete his job and return home.
Vaste Programme, The Long Way Home of Ivan Putnik, Truck Driver. Courtesy of Eriskay Connection
Breaking from pastures and mountaintops, there are moments within Ivan’s archive that welcome the viewer to share his experience on the road. The photographs he takes in domestic locations feel close to the heart, like the image burned into one’s mind, spending a morning in a strange new place. He snaps photos of the homes of those who welcomed him: a wallpapered wall harboring a Virgin Mary, a pull-out mattress with a woman whose face cannot be seen. These images are amplified with short textual blurbs adding poetic guideposts to Ivan’s inner monologue. The responsibility of chores never leaves, even on the road. He toils over his responsibilities, “gloves/socks/windshield/post office/eggs,” for he only has time for the essentials, sacrificing communication with loved ones for the sake of getting on. In other images, Ivan commemorates occasional ventures to landmarks like a snow-crusted Russian globe and an empty night club in the same way a tourist would. He visits these locations alone, punctuating the solitude of his work and suggesting these moments may look different under different circumstances.
Vaste Programme, The Long Way Home of Ivan Putnik, Truck Driver. Courtesy of Eriskay Connection
The fictional expedition of Ivan Putnik highlights increasingly dire truths about the world at large. Hidden in the vast in-betweens, tucked away from suburbs and major cities alike, are volcanoes of industry, rusting pipelines, and snowfalls of ash littering the earth. Ivan opens the reader’s eyes to this quiet, insidious truth lurking in that space. What would be a silent truck driver making a tangible document of his humble life on the fringes is an analogue for the systems that oppress him and his surroundings— our surroundings. Vaste Programme comments on the vampire industries that suck away the Earth’s resources and our participation with them. Signs of planetary decay sit just a few clicks away on Google, yet millions of consumers rely on the inevitable expenditure of fossil fuel Ivan’s truck runs on. In these photos, Ivan the person persists, documenting these truths from the perspective of a trucker, earning his living and finding home in the endangered natural margins.
