Last year the festival was called SamaraNEXT. Meeting place”, and its participants worked on the creation of projects of unusual benches, which were then placed in different parts of the city. The main base of the current festival was the island, which has the unofficial name "Hungry" and is located on the Volga, directly opposite the central beach of Samara.
During the week, the participants worked on the implementation of art objects invented in advance and selected by the organizers, designed to become part of the improvement of the central beach. Among them you can find shops of unusual shapes, changing rooms, sun loungers and several other very unexpected objects.
More shops, good and different
Alexander Filimonov created a shop "Wooden ruler on the beach". The school ruler, enlarged 30 times, is designed to become not just a place to sit, but also an attraction that allows you to measure everyone. By the way, the idea of creating such a bench was not born by chance: in 2019, the metric system introduced by the Paris Academy will turn 300 years old.
The series of KLUFL transformer benches was created by Irina Fishman. The abbreviation "CLUFL" stands for Klumba-Lavka-Urn-Lantern-Lezhak. And this truly multifunctional urban object, created from a wooden frame sheathed with a two-centimeter layer of plywood, suggests a lot of modifications - "2L" (Lavka-Lezhak), "LUL" (Lavka-Urna-Lezhak), "FoKS" (Lantern-Chair-Table), as well as “Just Urn. Or just a flower bed. Or just a Lantern "," Double Urn - for separating paper and glass waste. Or an urn with a flower bed. Or a flowerbed with a Lantern. Or…"
Kirill Skachkov's shop makes you return to the not-so-distant past and recall the times when carpets hung on the walls in almost every apartment. "Against the background of a carpet" is an attempt to remember and preserve the symbol of the passing era, without which not a single family or drinking photo could do in Soviet times. Now the high carved back of the bench acts as a carpet.
The environmental sculpture "Bathers" by Olga Filimonova, strictly speaking, is not a shop. In the composition, created from the processed trunks of two old Sarov trees, the outlines of two walking people in bathing suits are guessed. But the artist suggests: if the "Bathers" are knocked down, then the bright striped logs can be used for sitting.
Changing Room Variations
Yevgeny Filimonov called his dressing room "Gradient", and its walls, painted in bright red, are really gradually thinning. This interesting visual effect is achieved by changing the distance between the bars nailed to the frame: they are located close to each other in the center of the wall and gradually discharge as they approach the top and bottom edges.
“Locker Room # 2” by Olga Strogova looks both simple and original. Its shape is set by hoops, to which stationary boards are nailed, and curtain doors are attached to them, in turn.
Changing room # 3 of Petr Vinogradov is designed for 6 people, entrances are organized for three people on one side and for three on the other. All cabins are located on a common wooden deck.
Places for rest
The appearance on the beach and "Deck chairs" is quite natural. A group of identical sun loungers under a common removable canopy was designed by Arseny Novikov. The chaise longue that "breaks" three times at a large angle looks quite comfortable.
The object "Renaissance of the Soviet armchair" (or otherwise - "Renaissance of an unnecessary thing") by Inna Safiullina and Oksana Bazanova is an attempt to give the Soviet red armchair with wooden armrests a second life. The chair, fixed with cables on a wooden arch, loses its former purpose and turns into a swing.
Daria Lisitsyna, who invented the “Redball” structure, suggested creating a radically new space on the beach. The "red ball" with a diameter of 2.5 m made of plywood or well-bending boards vaguely resembles in function, but not at all in shape, a gazebo in which you can hide from the scorching sun. The ball can be dug into the sand, or it can move along the beach. Inside, for the convenience of vacationers, pillows or an armful of hay can be placed.
These were the objects selected according to the results of the preliminary competition and created on the Samara city beach. Some of them, as planned, remained on the banks of the Volga, the sculpture "Bathers" and a series of benches "KLULF" were handed over to the sponsor of the festival, the firm "Aviakor", which will place them in one of the residential quarters of Samara. And the "Renaissance of the Soviet armchair", "Redball" and the shop "Against the background of the carpet" went to the Samara temporary detention center for juvenile offenders. So the festival, originally conceived as a land art holiday, acquired great social significance. Next year "SamaraNEXT" will be held under the name "2012. The festival is a disaster”, and its main theme will be the attitude of architects to global cataclysms.
