Foundation Pit plunges us in the life of the Steel city founded in 1929 and typical of the urban development in the age of Stalin's industrialization. Long considered the largest steel mill in the world, Magnitogorsk is now endangered by the crisis. The artist, like an anthropologist, offers us a portrait of the changing industrial city lost somewhere between the Soviet era and modern Russia. He captures details of architecture and environment, spotlights the inhabitants — workers or pensioners whose life, just like in the Soviet past, depends entirely on Magnitogorsk steel works, while certain details of the everyday reveal the cruelty of capitalist reality.

The famous city built in response to Stalin's decision to transform the nation into a "country of metal", Magnitogorsk has been glorified by many photographers of the era. Tim Parchikov recycles some historical pictures by Vladislav Mikosha in a site-specific installation. He prints photographs of architecture, steel mills, episodes of everyday life on metal plates and displays them on a single large wall next to the new photographs, as if to underscore the difference between them, which only reinforces the sensation of a gap and aggravates the disillusionment.