Culture without a house - A rose without roots #2024

Toward a history of the Rosa’s House of Culture
(DK Rosa St. Petersburg 2015-2022)

Installation at Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz
(8.-31.8.2024)

Realization: Chto Delat International (Tsaplya Olga Egorova, Dmitry Vilensky, Nikolay Oleynikov and Ada Abdrushevitch)

My sister Rosa says >>>>> Performed by Nikolay Oleynikov

Duration: 5:05 min.

A rap poem written and performed by Nikolay Oleynikov

Video documentation and edit: Dmitry Vilensky

Dedicated to the foundation of Rosa’s House of Culture

Performed at the symposium “Draft”, organized by
Institute for Contemporary Art Research (IFCAR), Zurich University of the Arts
June 2016

Where have we been for 8 years? A slide film, by Dimitri Vilensky

Slide film, by Dimitri Vilensky

2014-2022
Many thanks to all the participants and guests of the Rosa’s House of Culture and the School of Engaged Art.
This slide show is not a comprehensive and chronologically accurate representation of the events. Full documentation can be found on the School’s and Rosa’s House of Culture websites with a complete list of names, guests’ presentations and attribution of works.

see more here:
https://schoolofengaged.art/en/
https://dkrosy.space/
***
The question “where have you been for 8 years?” is usually addressed in Russia to those who, from different angles, have not noticed the reality of the war in Ukraine, which began with the annexation of Crimea in March 2014.
It is happened that our project of the School of Engaged Art and the place where our classes were held – the Rosa’s House of Culture, just started in this tragic moment of time and all our programs were in one way or another connected with this emergency situation.
This selection of photographs is not intended to be a chronological and detailed documentation of our work. To some extent it is both an accusation and an apology. Looking back, we realize how we could not understand the catastrophic nature of the moment, and how much we tried to preserve and cultivate a (un)possible creative community capable of resisting the pressures of a rapidly fascization of our society.
These photographs look different to those who lived this moment together, who remember the textures, the touches, the acoustics, the rustles, the shadows in the darkness of the Rosa Palace until the lights were turned on. Or when it was turned off and the screen was not yet on. I hope that these flashes of my individual memory can resonate with other recollections of the stories of cultural houses and communities that have lost their home, and give a little hope that what was once embodied can be re-emerged. (Dmitry Vilensky)