This image appears in Jonas Bendiksen’s award-winning book Satellites – Photographs from the Fringes of the Former Soviet Union, published by Aperture in 2006. For the series, Bendiksen travelled across the southern borderlands of the former USSR to explore remote communities that were born out of the collapse of the Soviet Union. During his time in the Altai Territory, he witnessed two young villagers collecting scrap metal from the wreckage of a crashed Soyuz spacecraft. Bendiksen describes how it 'had just rained heavily, and the storm clouds were passing in the background, giving that dark background. The sky filled with thousands of white butterflies. Farmers, space rocket, butterflies, sunlight on stormy skies: all in all this is probably one of the most surreal and magical moments ever to pass before my eyes.' The work has been widely exhibited across the world, such as at the Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam and Photographic Center Northwest, Seattle. Bendiksen won the Ian Parry Scholarship in 2001 with a portfolio of images from this trip to Russia.
Born in 1977 in Norway, Jonas Bendiksen began his career at the age of 19 as an intern at Magnum’s London office, before leaving for Russia to pursue his own work as a photojournalist. After this, he went on to become the youngest ever President of Magnum Photos, London. His editorial clients include National Geographic, Stern, TIME, Newsweek, The Sunday Times Magazine, and The Guardian Weekend.
