Control Refresh is the result of the photographer Toma Gerzha’s research into the impact of political events on young people in several former Soviet countries. Over the last three years, Gerzha has met teenagers in remote towns in Russia and Eastern Europe. She has amassed a large collection of photographs of young people who have shared their vulnerability with her, let her into their boredom and talked to her about their dreams.
In 2021, Gerzha set out on her first major photographic journey across Russia. She contacted teenagers in small towns through social media and spent days (sometimes weeks) with them. She documented their lives and surrounding environment, took notes and wrote their stories. Her project was interrupted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but she decided to include this change in her research and continued to visit her subjects regularly.
By late 2023, she had built a collection of stories of young people in Eastern Europe, recording how their lives and choices were influenced by the political decisions made by their countries. Without realising it, Gerzha created her own timeline in which she recorded how a free country quickly closed itself off from the world and how its inhabitants tried to adapt to the changes.