Annika Haas (b. 1974) is a photo artist who lives and works in Tallinn. She studied photojournalism at the Tartu Art College and her work focuses on closed communities, examining their internal structures and operating patterns.
A series of portraits started in 2011, “Plane Watchers”, gives us a close-up view of the summer cottage dwellers who lived in Soodevahe Village near Tallinn Airport. Their existence on allotments given to Dvigatel factory workers in the 1960s ended when the airport acquired the land and the spontaneous district of ramshackle cottages stood in the way of its expansion plans.
The subjects in the photos were aware that their dachas were going to be razed and their feelings about the past and the future can be discerned in their eyes. Annika Haas’s shots taken using a Lubitel camera have a nostalgic atmosphere, as they are the last full-colour, light-filled documents about a stage in life that was destined to end soon.
