Exhibitions are usually a way for us to get inspiration for photography, but Russian photographer Nikita Teryoshin is different. He is keen on visiting some strange exhibitions, such as dog exhibitions, funeral exhibitions, etc. In 2016, after visiting the European Hunting Expo in Dortmund, Germany, Nikita Teryoshin noticed people's fascination with guns. At the exhibition, some people couldn't put down their guns, and some people picked up guns and played with them repeatedly and practiced "aiming". After that, Teryoshin decided to go to a real arms trade fair, and then in September, he went to Kielce, Poland to participate in the largest arms trade exhibition in Eastern Europe.
Arms exhibitions usually display many of the latest models of flamethrowers, tanks, drones and other weapons. Some manufacturers will bring out rocket launchers and let people try out the feeling of simulated firing. As long as they follow the rules, visitors can "play" freely, but occasionally they are stopped. If there is a label "No photography allowed" on the exhibits, Teryoshin will not take pictures.
We see images of war and destruction on the news almost every day, and countries' military spending sets new records year after year. But Teryoshin's "Backstage of War" shows the exact opposite of the battlefield: a huge playground for adults with red wine, cakes and shiny weapons. Bazookas and machine guns are inserted into flat screens, war scenes are played out in artificial environments, and the podium is filled with high-ranking guests, ministers, heads of state, generals and businessmen. Military fans get excited in these "adult playgrounds". They have the opportunity to touch various weapons in person and participate in simulated wars without having to pay the price of their lives - because the "corpses" are all human models or pixels on the simulator screen. The exhibition will also stage many surreal scenes. Teryoshin saw such a scene in the UAE: the organizers suddenly brought out a huge commemorative cake, and people cheered. Many people began to cut the cake around bombs and explosives, and ate it with plastic spoons. The scene was joyous and chaotic.
The arms trade is an ancient and mysterious business, and its scale cannot be underestimated. According to data released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in 2019, the global arms trade volume increased by about 6% from 2015 to 2019 compared with 2010 to 2014. In 2019 alone, global arms sales climbed by nearly 5%, with a total transaction volume of US$420 billion. However, the scale has declined slightly in recent years.
Exhibitions on arms are usually called "defense exhibitions" or "weapons and equipment exhibitions", where officials, arms dealers and second-hand arms dealers will trade weapons. The exhibition is open to the public media, and photographers only need to register to participate. Teryoshin's works intentionally erase the faces of the characters in the picture because he does not want to focus all this on a specific person.
At the exhibition, these people look no different from other people, chatting with each other, some are even handsome, humorous and full of personal charm. For these people, as long as they can support their families, selling weapons may be no different from selling vacuum cleaners. Some manufacturers have put up slogans such as "Defending Peace for 70 Years" and "Designed for Life", which makes it sound like arms trading has really become a matter of benefiting the people and the country. "This is similar to propaganda, which will make people believe that launching a war is the result of having no choice. In addition, some people who produce and sell these things will choose to believe this statement in order not to make themselves sad." Teryoshin told China News Weekly. These advertisements have replaced blood and cruelty, but their blatantness has also caused resistance from ordinary people. In 2017, the world's largest arms exhibition was held in London, England, which triggered many peace lovers to take to the streets to protest, and more than 100 people were arrested.
Richard Gatling, the inventor of the Gatling gun, once said that he hoped to invent a machine gun with a very fast firing rate that would allow one person in a war to complete 100 tasks. His motivation was not to speed up the killing process, but to save lives by reducing the number of soldiers needed on the battlefield. Then there would be no need for so many large weapons, and more people could be saved from trench warfare and disease.
These photos are Teryoshin's personal expression and also a tribute to the surrealist anti-war works of John Heartfield, the founder of Dadaism and photographer in the 20th century. "The arms exhibition, the 'backstage of war', has a beautiful illusion, but we must go beyond this deception and see that behind the game-like appearance, the danger of war is always a man-made, time bomb that is ready to explode at any time." Teryoshin used "Nothing personal, just business" to describe the true appearance of the arms exhibition in his mind. He feels that the relationship between weapons and war is like the relationship between chicken and egg, which is mutually causal.
John Heartfield , Dangerous Dining Companions, 1930
So far, the photos were taken at 14 defense exhibitions held between 2016 and 2020 in Europe, Africa, Asia, North and South America (Poland, Belarus, South Korea, Germany, France, South Africa, China, UAE, USA, Peru, Russia, Vietnam and India). The ultimate goal of the project is to take photos on every continent, highlighting this very specific global business, and publish them as a photo book. The project has been exhibited in Strasbourg, France, Biel and Geneva, Switzerland, and won a research grant from the German VG Bildkunst in 2018, a grant from the PH Museum in 2019, first prize in the Series Award at the Miami Street Photography Festival in 2019, first prize in documentary photography at the Kolga Tbilisi Photo Week in 2020, and first prize in the "Contemporary Issues" category at the World Press Photo 2020 (single, first photo below), and was nominated for the Best Picture of the Year.
