Roma Zver
Ghost Vision

Ghost Vision is Roma Zver’s second solo exhibition at Erarta Museum: the viewers’ first chance to experience a new facet of the Zveri band frontman’s versatile talent came in 2017 with his Moments show that featured photographs documenting seven years of travels across more than 150 cities of the world. That past exhibition was divided into three conceptual sections, showcasing analogue, digital, and smartphone photographs respectively.

The 2025 show once again celebrates Roma’s favourite subject of wanderlust, which he values as an opportunity to both explore the global landscape and stay present in the captured moment. This time around, however, he has taken the idea one step further and, specifically for the Erarta Museum exhibition, ‘enhanced’ his snapshots with a new ironic twist. Assisting Roma on this project was a certain presence that seemed to seamlessly blend with the eternally present moment.

‘Why a ghost? Well, it’s a being that does and does not exist at the same time. Perhaps it’s my self-portrait. After all, it is hardly possible to enter or even envisage myself in these images. But this way I revisit them in a kind of poetical way . . .  The ghost is like a trace of my being there and witnessing the scene in person. But please do not go searching for some profound messages in these pictures: it is more like I’m challenging the viewer to a game of hide and seek,’ explains Roma.

Not every photograph would neatly fit into this concept, causing the artist to give much time and thought to the careful selection of images in which he could introduce his ‘character’ and have it engagingly interact with people and architecture. Out of roughly 200 pictures thus examined, around 70 made it to the large-scale exhibition at Erarta Museum. According to the artist, none of them have been publicly displayed before, meaning that not only the viewers, but also his near and dear ones are in for a big surprise: Roma Zver revealed that even his daughters have not yet seen the final product of his endeavours.

Another point worth mentioning is that the ‘apparition’ was incorporated in the images by means of AI. In Roma’s words, ‘If a new technology emerges, why not try and use it? Progress broadens our horizons and possibilities: image processing has turned into a fun thing you can do right on your smartphone.’ Nevertheless, this does not mean that the process required less effort – learning the ins and outs of AI image generators and bending them to accommodate your vision takes hundreds of trial and error cases. Roma admits that not all of his attempts were successful: ‘When I just started to ‘draw’ on my photographs, it didn’t always go as planned, leaving me with only one nice image out of ten.’

Besides music and globetrotting, Roma is passionate about collecting contemporary art, reading, surfing, and of course photography. He is the only Russian musician to have received the Cannes Soundtrack Award. Ghost Vision affords yet another insight into the famous band leader’s creative realm.