Description of the Projects in the Exhibit “On the Possibility of Light”
– Memorials to Weak Light
A series of sculptures – lamps, gathered around a lighthouse tower modeled on the agitprop constructions of Gustav Klutsis. Each of the sculptures is devoted to a particular hero or event– in most cases the moment of their heroic death in battle, so that it is a memorial in their honor. All events depicted in these memorials and their subjects are taken from the true stories of recent protests.
– Performative Practices of Our Time
A series of photographs from the internet documenting various events of a performative nature, organized by the authorities or by ordinary people in Russia and Ukraine. These practices have become an important feature of our time, when contemporary politics and everyday life constantly manifest themselves through performative rituals, replicated and reproduced by social media.
– Dream of a Protester
A three-channel video installation, made using staged photography documentary footage of a protest in one of Petersburg’s public squares in front of the entrance to a shopping center. The theme of the solitary protester is an important one for grassroots political activism in Russia, since it is the only possible form of protest. In this work we conducted an experiment, putting three protesters on the square with provocative signs: “Hug Me, I’m Your Enemy,” “Hit Me, I’m Your Sister,” “Pinch Me—I’m Dreaming You.” Each protester stopped passersby with a Go-pro video camera. The protesters engaged in discussion with both random passersby and a series of actors who conveyed typical points of public discussion in Russia. The film footage underscores the surrealist / oneiric character of what is going on, as it becomes hard to tell who is speaking whose words and why.
The work significantly references the famous discussion about coffee and the world economy in the film Kuhle Wampe, directed by Slatan Dudow and written by Bertolt Brecht, and dismantling a microsection of German public opinion not long before the Nazis took power.
– It Hasn’t Happened With Us Yet.
Safe Haven
A film by the Chto Delat? Group
(directed by Tsaplya Olga Egorova, Dmitry Vilensky, Nina Gasteva and Nikolai Oleinikov)
The collective responsible for the film further includes: Аnna Тereshkina, Маria Russkikh, Inna Krasnoper, Аrtyom Terentyev and Los. Camera operator: Аrtyom Ignatov.
Length: 42 min. Language: Russian-English and Norwegian.
Safe Haven is the name of a network of residences for artists, authors and musicians who live in countries where their life, freedom and human dignity are in danger. In the Safe Haven residences they can decide their further fate– whether to request political asylum or return to their native land. Most of these residences are located in small, pleasant towns in Northern Europe.
We are not yet in need of assistance in the form of a Safe Haven. Regardless of continually growing censorship and repression of any kind of critical statement, we can produce art with minimal risk to life and freedom. But what will happen if we do have need of a Safe Haven? Or rather, what will happen when we need one? What will happen if at some point we find ourselves hiding from danger in a residence on one of the small Norwegian islands?
In our film we created an imaginary situation in which 5 people arrive at one such residence. Each of them would be prepared to get involved in local life and become a full-fledged member of the local community, sharing their experience of persecution and flight; they are therefore keen to listen to local residents, who in turn are happy to share their views on life as well as stories about the place, and to tell about the particular rules of local living. There might turn out to be a lighthouse on the island, and the refugees constantly invoke that image in their reflections.
The film shows the conflict between the possibility of immersing oneself in normal, peaceful life and the idea of returning to real struggle and dangers. This film is a story of what hasn’t happened with us yet.
