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Control Refresh documents the lives of young people in Russia, strongly influenced by tradition, social media, and politics. A Russian passport gave Toma Gerzha (RU/NL) access to (remote) cities in Russia over the past three years. She captured her peers living, dreaming, and enjoying themselves while surrounded by war propaganda.

Gerzha’s parents moved from Russia to the Netherlands in 2009. She grew up in Amsterdam but was surrounded by her family’s Soviet mentality and traditions. From an early age, she began documenting the differences between these two cultures to understand why she did not feel fully at home in either. Strongly connected to her Generation Z peers, the focus of her research, she used the internet to escape.

Gen Z is the first generation to be born and raised in a digital environment. They cannot imagine a world without the internet. According to generational theory, there are many similarities between Gen Z and the Silent Generation, whose teenage years took place around the end of the Second World War, especially in the way they receive information. While their great-grandparents learned from books, they prefer a virtual world to the real one. The medium has changed, but the essence is similar: the replacement of lived experience with the experience of authors or creators. A phenomenon often cited as a reason for the loneliness of this generation and the underdevelopment of their personal communication skills.

These are difficult times for Russian Gen Z’s. They are afraid to speak out against the war. They see the military propaganda around them and fear being drafted to fight in Ukraine.

Control Refresh features a variety of photographs, captions, and a timeline of events from Russia’s recent history to provide context for the youth’s well-being.

Toma Gerzha (2003) is a mixed media artist born in Moscow and currently based in Amsterdam. She is known for her photography and mixed media work, which primarily explores themes related to the Eastern European mentality, feelings of not belonging, and the perspective of being both an insider and an outsider. Her art often explores the lives of young people and the impact of political and social dynamics on their everyday experiences. Gerzha’s work has been exhibited at the Biennale de l’Image Possible, ParisPhoto, Encontros da Imagem, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and featured in publications such as De Volkskrant, Marie Claire Belgique, ELLE Korea, and the British Journal of Photography. Her photography captures the essence of coming-of-age moments, often depicting ‘party culture’ as a form of escapism for the youth she photographs.