Pictures of happiness

The Topography Of Happiness, which makes its global premiere in Moscow today (July 24th), covers more than 100 years of marital history in an effort to explain why modern newlyweds often feel obliged to spare no expense when forking out for the happiest day of their lives.

The display, which it is anticipated will also soon be touring the UK, Western Europe and the US, features more than 500 items, including wedding outfits, gifts and reception bills. Photographs from different eras show how modern celebrations, which are staged and manicured to look as if their cost is of no consequence, contrast with the austere Soviet ceremonies that would have been commonplace just 20 years ago.

The exhibition is part of an international research project led by the University of Cambridge, investigating how people understand and try to attain happiness in modern life.

The researchers decided to examine marriage not just because it symbolises happiness, but because it has spawned its own “happiness industry”, in which the “perfect day” seems to be something that can be bought from a catalogue. The study is the first such examination of modern economies of happiness — and of modern weddings from this perspective.

“The idea of happiness as something which can be bought is historically very new,” Dr Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov, from the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge and one of the project’s leaders, said.

“In the past it was only seen as being attainable in the distant future, through religious salvation, secular movements such as Communism, or ideals like the ‘American Dream’. Now societies seem to have acquired the idea not only that happiness can be pursued, but instantly achieved.”

“More than ever, our happiness is a commodity that we can buy on the internet, or off the shelf. This could soon be history in itself, however, as the economic crisis may usher in a new era of simplicity in which happiness is found not through excessive spending, but through abstinence.”

Russia was chosen for the study because of the sharp contrast between the materialism and aspiration of its modern culture and the rather more economical climate of its recent past. By putting images of weddings side-by-side, it is hoped visitors will realise how new the notion of “buying” happiness is, both in Russia and many other western societies.

As well as photographs, the exhibition juxtaposes artefacts such as modern designer wedding dresses and the Soviet-era versions, which changed hands several different times and were worn by a number of different brides. This was not just a response to economic shortages – a well-worn wedding dress was also reputed to bring both luck and happiness to its wearer.

Footage from Soviet and more recent Russian films which depict weddings is also used, to illustrate how happiness is represented in fiction, and how that contrasts with its elusive nature in real life.

In the process, the exhibition contends that happiness can be packaged and purchased by making it associable with a collection of things. It also, however, suggests that happiness is linked to particular places.

“In Russia, a new tradition has emerged of visiting famous urban landmarks, such as the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, or famous monuments and burial sites, on the wedding day,” Dr Olga Sosnina, the exhibition’s curator said. The exhibition shows how in recent periods in the nation’s cultural history, these sites have been used to suggest that the ideals of that period are part of a deeper tradition”.

In the Soviet period, for instance, a wedding was often seen as initiation into a wider “Communist family”. By moving some of its ceremony to sites which pre-dated the 1917 Revolution, that modern family ideal was associated with the essence of Russian tradition and history.

Nowadays, the sites are used to make the affluent style of modern marriage seem equally traditional. Happy couples tour famous Russian landmarks in limousines and are pictured in front of them. The idea of paying huge sums for happiness may be relatively new, but like their Soviet-era predecessors, by linking this image of prosperity to often historic locations, the no-expense-spared approach to marriage looks like an age-old tradition — even though the very tradition of visiting such sites was invented in late-Soviet and post-Soviet times.

The upshot, the researchers suggest, is that there are places all over the country which represent the gates to “living happily ever after”, creating a “topography of happiness” across Russia. The exhibition’s venue – the Tsaritsyno Moscow Estate Palace, once a great Imperial Family Residence, is now a “must visit” destination on wedding days.

“In Russia, Britain and the west, weddings have become increasingly costly affairs,” Dr. Ssorin-Chaikov added. “In some ways, this is because happiness itself is difficult to measure. Cost, on the other hand, can be measured, so buying expensive things has come to symbolise its attainment. This exhibition shows how happiness has become a trigger that makes us consume.”

“The Topography Of Happiness: Russian weddings from the 19th to the 21st centuries” opens in the Tsaritsyno Estate Museum, Moscow, on July 24th. The exhibition has been curated by Dr. Olga Sosnina.