Barry Lewis's Gulag documents the chilling legacy of the Soviet Union's forced labor camps through a photographic exploration undertaken in Eastern Siberia during the winter of 1991. Set against the backdrop of Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost reforms, which enabled transparency, the project granted Lewis access to suppressed histories and the voices of Gulag survivors.
The journey began in Magadan, a desolate port city built by Gulag prisoners and historically used as a transit hub for inmates shipped from across the Soviet Union. Described by Lewis as a “cold Bleak City with no trees,” Magadan embodied both the physical and historical barrenness of Stalinist penal logistics.
His approach centers on individual stories and historical memory, encouraging viewers to consider the ongoing consequences of systemic repression. Each photograph is both a testament and an accusation, aimed at preserving personal and collective memory against official narratives of silence and denial. The series includes not only images of survivors but also of prisoners still incarcerated at the time, providing rare documentation of ongoing penal life within the collapsing Soviet system.
Using Kodachrome film, the photographs depict institutional and geographic environments in vivid color, contrasting with the restrained subject matter documented throughout the project. Lewis composes his images to either frame individuals amid harsh architecture or to leave landscapes purposefully uninhabited—such as the Kolyma Highway, a 2,000-kilometer route built by prisoners, where countless died and were buried beneath the road itself.
First shown widely in European magazines in 1991, the work re-emerged as the photobook Gulag (2024) and has since been exhibited at Photo North Festival, Leeds and FOTOIST International Photography Festival, Kosovo. Recognition includes finalist for the Lucie Photo Book Prize.