Association "Province" (1987, Minsk, BSSR - the second half of the 90s) - an association of creative photography in Minsk. Team members: Alexei Ilyin, Viktor Kalennik, Sergei Kozhemyakin, Zoya Migunova, Galina Moskaleva, Vladimir Parfenok, Gennady Rodikov, Gennady Slobodsky, Alexander Uglyanitsa, Vladimir Shakhlevich and others. Basically, these are graduates of Studio-2 and Studio-3 Valery Lobko at the Minsk photo club.

In 1988, the landmark exhibition "The Beginning" was held in the Minsk Cinema House (now the Red Church). The groups "Province", "Belarusian climate" and "META" took part in this exhibition.

In 1988, the Province Association participates in the New Soviet Photography exhibition, which was held in Moscow, USSR.

Also in 1988, an exhibition was held on the embankment in the Yanka Kupala park in Minsk.

In 1989, a one-day exhibition was held at VDNKh in Minsk.

1989 was marked by the association's first foreign trip and already in 1990 an exhibition was held in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Participation in the project "Photo Manifesto: Modern Photography in the USSR" in Moscow in 1990.

The informal association "Province" broke up in the second half of the 90s[1].

Notes:

[1] based on materials from the site znyata.com.

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Memoirs of Vladimir Parfenk:

“Who was in the “Province”? Almost everyone who graduated from the third studio, about 12-15 people. And also the guys from Studio-2 and several graduates of the theater and art institute entered the “Province”. then he left photography, someone left the country ... "Province" could only conditionally be called an organization, in fact it was a club of informals, who, in turn, united in their own even smaller informal groups ... For example, Sergey Kozhemyakin and I called themselves the Luggage Storage group, Volodya Shakhlevich, Galina Moskaleva and, it seems, Gena Rodikov were the Paris group, Sasha Uglyanitsa, Vitya Kalennik and Lesha Trufanov formed the META group. Lesha Ilyin, Zoya Migunova and Gena Slobodsky - the group " Aero”… Even Valera Lobko had his own “Society for Combating Photography”!

In general, there was a moment when the "Province" turned into
into an association of small, informal photographic groups. Everyone was doing something, periodically exhibiting in cinemas and other public places. With Sergei Kozhemyakin, we made an exhibition in the photo shop "Kadr" on the avenue. It seems to have been one of the first public exhibitions of members of the "Province". It was called "City" ...

It seems that a general "provincial" exhibition was also held in "Kadr"
titled "Nostalgia". This was my curatorial debut.
I remember with what difficulty I squeezed out my first text about the exhibition ... Valera said: “Write!” And I had to write!" - © ZNYATA, "Vladimir Parfyonok: the prestige of photography", 2020