A new exhibition by French-Swiss photographer Sabine Meier, Portrait of a Man is a project 5 years in the making that constitutes a portrait of Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. A labyrinth of free standing walls with 37 direct-to-surface photographic prints seeks to capture the inner workings of a man who, in Meier’s own words, “[his] mental space was constantly shifting, someone who walked and walked some more, who went around in a sleepy daze as much as he ruminated to the point of exhaustion.” Meier found her protagonist Benjamin George Filinson in New York’s Liberty Plaza. Sonia, Raskolnikov’s lover, and Razumikhin, his friend, were found on the streets of New York as well. Meier shot the first half of the project in New York, including at Knockdown Center, adjusting her studio practice to a more street-friendly method. Filinson (Raskolnikov) agreed to follow Meier to Le Havre to complete the project, where they recreated Raskolnikov’s room as a reflection of his inner self.

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