The jubilee festival "Art-Ovrag" was held with a special scale and solemnity. Not only did a record number of residents and guests of the city take part in the event program, more than fifty events themselves were held. For three days, the city of Vyksa in the Nizhny Novgorod region for the fifth time turned into the main platform for contemporary art and urban activity.
Vyksa - a city with a long history, preserved monuments of architecture and cultural heritage - is known primarily as a large industrial center: one fourth of its entire territory is occupied by one of the oldest metallurgical plants in Europe. Founded back in 1757 by the Batashev brothers, it still operates in full today, preserving on its territory such unique objects as the water tower, designed by Vladimir Shukhov and which became the prototype of the famous Moscow radio tower, and his authorship of the workshop with the world's first sail-shaped mesh floors … However, it is impossible for an ordinary citizen or a visiting tourist to get into the closed territory of the plant, and the main attraction of the city remains behind high fences for many years. And if the tower stands firmly, then the Shukhov workshops, according to Alexander Kastravets, OMK's PR Director, are in critical condition. But nobody repairs them.
At the same time, in the very center of the city, you can see a beautiful ensemble of classical buildings from the second half of the 18th century. This is the house-palace of the founders of the plant, which now houses a museum telling about the Batashev family and the history of the metallurgical plant. It is he who serves as the hallmark of Vyksa. As the residents of the city explain with pride, Vyksa stores almost most of all cultural objects of the Nizhny Novgorod region. But in the city, unfortunately, they are lost among the typical Soviet and post-Soviet buildings. The Vyksa residents are no less proud of their nature than their historical heritage: the city stands on three lakes, and the Oka flows not far from the city borders.
The Art-Ovrag festival, dedicated to both art and sports, has been held in Vyksa for the fifth year in a row with the support of OMK (United Metallurgical Company). This year its theme is "The Shores of the Arts", with a hint of the lakes and the Oka.
The festival kicked off early Friday morning on June 19 despite the fact that the official opening was scheduled for 5 pm. Almost with the first rays of the sun, the central city park was filled with people, volunteers in bright red T-shirts with the inscription “Have a question? Ask me!”, Participants and curators. The main festival site - "Summer Stage" - turned into a dance school, where famous dancers taught everyone the basics of salsa. Workshops for children and adults in white tents in the middle of the park were held by the Moscow Museum of Modern Art and the Volga branch of the NCCA, whose building was recently officially opened in Nizhny Novgorod. Children and parents were introduced to the most unusual techniques of appliqué, chemography and painting - for example, using balloons or forks; made kaleidoscopes and mastered the basics of pop art.
In the Art-Food pavilion, the townspeople learned to cook over an open fire. As the curator of this section, Galina Belyaeva, explained, the only indigenous inhabitant of Vyksa among all curators, the list of dishes is not limited to barbecue, there are also, for example, fajitos and kebaberia.
Early in the morning in the museum of the history of the metallurgical plant, an exhibition of a native of Vyksa, automobile designer Nikita Medeltsa opened and started working. In addition to his own works, he presented the best car drawings from the results of his children's competition. It should be noted that last year Nikita became the winner of a street art competition and had the opportunity to realize his creative idea on the streets of his native city, which every year more and more resembles one large open-air contemporary art gallery. This year, the designer did not paint anymore, but instead participated in the selection of the best artists. By the opening day, their works were completed. First place went to Alexander “Blot” Salnikov and his graffiti entitled “The Key to Happiness”. An unusual painting appeared at the end of one of the five-story buildings on Liza Chaikina Street, next to the famous work of the artist Pasha183 "The Tale of Lost Time", which has been completely restored by this festival. This year's winner is from Penza; he admitted that he did the sketch in a hurry, on the last night before the deadline for accepting applications and did not count on anything, having no experience in implementing such large-scale projects. However, everything worked out. The idea of "making friends" of street art with motives of folk crafts was liked by the judges and was implemented.
On the same day, the festival curator, partner of the Wowhaus architectural bureau Oleg Shapiro, who was congratulated not only on the successful start of Art-Ovrag, but also on his birthday, together with the author of the project, Artem Chernikov, presented a new valuable acquisition of the park - the improvement of the embankment of a small lake Lebedinka … The reservoir is located in one of the remote, but visited parts of the park. Here, along its coastline, wooden tables, benches, sun loungers and even an organized fishing spot appeared on small platforms. Rectangular bridges with one edge rested on the gentle bank of the Lebedinka, the other - on reliable supports that fit close to the water. The water in the lake was purified, which was also included in the improvement program.
It is interesting that long before the official opening, namely at the moment of screwing in the last bolt, the townspeople instantly began to master the space offered to them - as if it had always existed here. Young schoolgirls and students sat on the sun loungers, sunbathing and listening to birds chirping, noisy companies with gadgets settled at the tables. And the older population, along with their children, made desperate attempts amid all this noise and fun to catch at least some fish. By the way, not a single fish appeared in a tin bucket specially provided for these purposes for the whole day, and the cats wandering along the coast were left without the promised delicacy. By the end of the day, the fishing rods disappeared without a trace.
In addition to the entertainment part, as part of the opening of a new urban space, three diploma works of Moscow Architectural Institute graduates, dedicated to the development of Vyksa, were shown. Oskar Mamleev's students thought about creating new walking routes that would make it easy, on an intuitive level, to find the lake and other iconic places of the city. Another proposal concerned the adaptation of the towers existing on the embankment for a large public center.
The second new and immediately loved by the townspeople art object and at the same time the playground "Vyksa" was erected near Lebedinka, right behind the giant figure of a wooden unicorn, created in 2013 by the project of the Hungarian artist Gabor Miklos Soke. It must be said that the unicorn, according to the results of the audience voting, which took place during all three days, became the winner among the best objects realized by Art-Ovrag over the past four years. But let's return to Vyksa. The art object is a construction of five three-meter wooden letters on a metal frame. The name of the city is laid out from the letters, and each letter acts as a kind of game element. Let's say "A" is a swing, and "K" is a summit that you can climb up a ladder.
The organizers did not forget about the year of literature in the country. Within the framework of the festival, the event "The History of the Magic Forest" was dedicated to this topic. Among the trees, colorful cardboard animal figurines appeared, each of which symbolized a particular literary genre. At the tables, children drew fairy tales, glued and cut homemade books from colored paper. Others, secluded in the tents set up here, simply read.
In the evening, tired from a busy day, the townspeople gathered at the "Summer Stage" for the opening of the festival. Despite the cool weather and raging mosquitoes, there were a lot of people who wanted to see the main characters of the festival. And the ceremony would have turned out to be completely ordinary, if not for an unexpected impromptu from the Minister of Culture of the Nizhny Novgorod Region, Sergei Gorin, who sang an acapello song about love for Russia.
The spectators willingly supported the official, and then rushed to the last performance, the dance performance "In Search of Water", in one of the deep ravines of the park. There, people in white, in clouds of smoke, using only body plastics tried to reveal the essence of the declared theme of the festival - "The Shores of the Arts". Among the dancers were volunteers - residents of Vyksa, and the case ended with hugging the actors with the audience.
The next two weekends passed at a set, unrestrained pace. Master classes from morning to evening, sports competitions and workshops, parkour, skateboard, BMX and workout, dance and music performances, rap battles, hip-hop battles and break dance. Also, the city-wide quest "Art-Search" was held, where participants solved riddles and puzzles, looking for Vyksa art objects. The audience only had time to run from one scene to another; many events took place simultaneously, without stopping for a minute. In the middle of the second day, the Art Yard was opened on Gogol Street: at the Vyksa festival, it is customary to turn one ordinary city yard into an art space. This year, the concept of its improvement was proposed by a little twelve-year-old resident of this courtyard Liza Tsareva. The fact is that the curators of Art-Dvor Artem Ukropov and Lyudmila Malkis set the residents the task of directly participating in the transformation of their own courtyard, expressing their wishes, and finding original solutions. Lisa's concept turned out to be the most striking: rounded yellow wood elements divide the courtyard space into playgrounds and sports grounds, places for relaxation and communication. On the opening day, the basketball court became an impromptu stage, where residents put on a real show with poetry, songs and dances.
An important event was a round table where experts tried to answer the question "Can festivals of a new culture become a means for the development of cities and the self-realization of people?" It was held in the conference hall of the Batashev hotel. The moderator - TV presenter Fyokla Tolstaya, diligently exacerbated the dialogue. Most of the participants in the discussion, including local residents, agreed that Art-Ovrag, like other similar events, has a serious impact on the city and its population. According to Oleg Shapiro, the festival contributes to the formation of a new urban community. The main focus of influence is children, who absorb all the information offered to them. This is a long-term work, but in the future it will certainly bear fruit, including for the development of the urban environment. Alexey Muratov, partner of KB Strelka, disagreed with this opinion: “The festival changes society, identifies and accumulates human potential, and involves the local population in the process. But the impulse from the festival very rarely contributes to the development of the city itself”.
The theatrical program of the festival unfolded in the historic building of the recreation center "Metallurg". The Moscow theater "Trickster" held a master class with children on creating a shadow theater, and showed two fairy tales. One of them - "A Tale of Robots about a Real Man" - the kids watched sitting right on the stage, next to the actors and the main characters of the play - robot dolls. Adults also had the opportunity to be surprised when they saw the Russian premiere of the play "Everyday Apocalypse". The roles were played by actors from the Cologne ensemble Svetlana Furer from Germany. The performance was in German with simultaneous Russian translation. The actors' play was mesmerizing, as was the fantastic visual series of light and shadow, built before the eyes of the viewer.
“Art-Ovrag” ended on Sunday evening - touching and sad. On the eve of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the action "Waltz in Memory" was held on Metallurgists Square, designed to remember all the inhabitants of Vyksa who died during the war. Of the ten thousand soldiers who went to the front, no more than a third returned. Six and a half thousand candles were lit in memory of those killed in the square after sunset. The candles were placed along the contours of the 1941 map of the city, which the artists had been drawing with chalk on the asphalt all day. Until late, a waltz was played in the square, the townspeople danced and looked at the flickering lights.
