72 hours of celebration
From 9 to 11 June 2018, the city of Vyksa hosted one of the brightest and most popular festivals of urban culture in Russia, Art-Ovrag, held by the United Metallurgical Company, JSC OMK and the OMK-participation charitable foundation. The organizers claim that this is the largest festival of its kind outside of Moscow, and you can't argue with that. For three days, residents and guests of the city of Vyksa were waited for 10 venues, on which a rich program of many cultural, educational and sports events was unfolding, as well as presentations of new performances, installations and design objects, in one way or another, responding to those set by the chief curator of the festival, Anton Kochurkin. the motto "Useful Art". The paradoxical phrase pushed artists, architects and designers to search for solutions that, in addition to beauty and meaning, are useful for the city and its inhabitants. And they coped with this task.
It was physically impossible to find time everywhere and see everything that had been prepared, created and presented on the central square, in city parks and courtyards, on embankments and in the shops of the Metallurgical Combine, but everyone could find for themselves that site and those events that were most interesting, without missing the opportunity to get acquainted with something new and unusual.
For every taste and color …
The program and the ideology of the festival are developed by invited curators, whose term of office is three years, so that each team can realize all their endeavors, and then transfer the reins of government further. Now at the helm of the festival is the tandem of the festival's curator Anton Kochurkin and producer Yulia Bychkova, well-known as curators of the Archstoyanie festival, as well as the authors of several concepts of spatial development of territories. The latter is especially important for Art-Ovrag with its focus on creative rethinking and solving the problems of the post-Soviet city. To expand the thematic and typological range of the festival, several more experts were included in the curatorial team.
The curator of the theatrical program of the festival was the famous Russian director, laureate of the "Golden Mask" Yuri Muravitsky, thanks to whom an outstanding artistic event appeared in the program - the theatrical performance "Passion for Martin", staged by director and choreographer Anna Abalikhina in the space of the historic open-hearth workshop of the Vyksa metallurgical plant and dedicated to its closure this spring. There were only three performances, one for each festival day, but there is no doubt that the comprehension and evaluation of this extravaganza, built on the symbiosis of music, singing, dance and recitative and opposing them to a brutal and anti-theatrical environment, will continue for a long time. … Everyone who has attended the performance will not be able to perceive the industrial surroundings as before and, each time, in the roar of machines and conveyors, he will hear amazing music composed by composer Alexei Sysoev. The production was attended by factory workers, volunteers and students of the local music school. As Yuri Muravitsky said at a press conference, "the unusualness of this performance is that it is done here and about here."
Alexander Zavozhin became the curator of the festival's sports program. This section, traditionally popular with local residents, gives everyone the opportunity to get acquainted and try themselves in new sports such as workout, parkour, skateboarding and football freestyle. This year, the program of open lessons and competitions was supplemented by the presentation of a new sports facility "Skate Wave" in the city park, which was created together with the Vyksa UG group by the famous skater Timofey Lyubshin.
The educational program, which became permanent after last year's festival, is supervised by Maria Mkrtycheva. A community has been organized around it, which actively participates both in educational events and in other urban projects of "Art-Ovraga".
Alisa Bagdonaite was in charge of the contemporary art program, who also supervises the Art-residence “Vyksa Air”, which has been permanently operating in Vyksa since last year, where part of the artistic program unfolded, namely: a personal exhibition of one of the residents - Ustina Yakovleva, and in the evening they showed video and sound installation by Dmitry Bulnygin "Change". Another part of the program was held at the VSW History Museum, where a multimedia exhibition “Everyday Transformations” was opened and lectures by its curator Natalia Furs and meetings with media artists Elena Nikonole, Dmitry Morozov and Ildar Yakubov participating in it took place.
But the most striking event of the "Contemporary Art" program turned out to be hidden from casual glances in the forest park "Posadka" and only the most zealous connoisseurs, and even local residents strolling through the park along the only two paths, could enjoy the provocative and at the same time melancholic work of Timofei Rad (T -Radya), who proposed to save the reputation of "Landing", which is considered one of the most criminal places in the city, with the help of a huge glowing inscription "THIS IS NOT A DREAM", installed between tall pine trees on metal racks. And for every casual traveler passing through the park, these few words will now shine like "guiding stars."
Another art project presented a different, more democratic and unifying idea. Designed and realized by a French team of architect and set designer Laurence Falzon and curator Bertrand Gosselin, "ZASTOL'ye" is a 100-meter table stretching diagonally along the Metallurgists' Square. A simple and understandable metaphor of the table as a union and a means of finding a common language is always successful and, before Art-Ovrag, has already been shown to European cities. Vyksa shared her signature dish with the project - okroshka with sprat, served at a huge table.
The parallel program was supervised by the contemporary artist Vladimir Seleznev, thanks to whom, in the sphere of artistic activity at Art-Ovrag, auto-tuning, forging, watching films and an outdoor disco got into the sphere of artistic activity. The parallel program included the opening of the already mentioned skate-ground, and the presentation of the art object "Ball", invented by Natalia Guseva, a resident of Vyksa, and selected at a competition held this spring.
One of the symbols of Art-Ravine 2018 is an ensemble of two stops in the city center: a group of structures welded from bright red steel pipes. At first indistinct, when moving past they fold into huge letters and in a certain angle form the words "ART" and "OVRAG". The project of the Bureau "Druzhba" was chosen based on the results
open international competition. The stops are equipped with USB ports for recharging phones, in addition, the "friendly" architects have laid in the design a system of direct communication on the principle of "negotiating pipes" used on ships - it can be used by passengers while waiting for the bus.
The opening of the stops, as well as the presentation of all the main events of the festival, were accompanied by theatrical performances performed by the artists of the Spam-theater, whose bright bus branded according to the sketches of a local artist traveled around the city.
The authors of the stops, the architects of the Druzhba bureau, are known primarily as the inventors of new formats for playgrounds and recreational areas - in Vyksa they also equipped a multifunctional space in the courtyard at Pirogova Street, 6. It can be called a playground rather tentatively: two years ago, Druzhba, together with the artist Roman Ermakov and city activists, with the participation of the City for Children association and the Children's Architectural Club Horses on the Balcony, began a project to study the courtyard between the sports school and the children's school of arts. Most of the space was occupied by a parking lot. Instead of making their own project and realizing it, making the residents an “unexpected gift”, the architects of “Druzhba” decided not to impose solutions that were not needed by people, provoking a negative reaction. They borrowed the methodology of their own developmental activities with children - they made it possible for residents to independently determine what they want to see on the site. This is not to say that the process was easy. According to Bella Filatova, one of the partners of the Druzhba bureau, they had to overcome serious resistance and skepticism of local residents, who did not expect any miracles from the "architectural touring performers", and did not want any changes at all. After many twists and turns, the project was developed and mostly implemented for the Art-Ovrag festival. The residents who came to the opening happily confessed to the architects that they would recognize their very first ideas and sketches from the workshops in the constructed objects. Now residents will have to choose a name for the site - the collection of options began during the opening.
The concept of the courtyard on Pirogov Street was implemented within the framework of the "Do-it-yourself City" project. The goal of the project is to develop the urban community and involve residents in a qualitative transformation of the environment. Now the project is supervised by Svyat Murunov, he is leading in Vyksa a comprehensive research program "Workshop of Applied Urban Studies", which began a year and a half ago. It includes several stages: analysis of the situation with the courtyards in Vyksa, population surveys, identification of active and capable communities, organization of workshops to collect ideas and create concepts for new multifunctional courtyard spaces, called Art Courtyards. Five courtyards have already been reconstructed and re-equipped according to projects and in accordance with the request of local communities. New playgrounds for recreation and sports were opened by the beginning of Art-Ovrag.
Cold hot
Named after a ravine in the city park, where the first festival under the motto "Street art instead of drugs" was held eight years ago, "Art-Ovrag" has changed a lot not only in scale, duration and number of participants, but also in format. and most importantly, the goals of its conduct. Changes are probably the most valuable subject of analysis of the phenomenon of urban art festivals in Russia in general and Art-Ovraga in particular.
One of the initiators of the festival, its soul and engine of the whole process, the chairman of the board of trustees of the OMK-Uchastiye Foundation, Irina Sedykh, said at a press conference that the festival has come a long way in eight years. It all started as a city holiday that could distract young people from drugs and give them new formats for splashing out energy, including creativity. The main city-forming enterprise that provides the residents of the city with work, realizing its duty - which, we admit, it is already so often found in Russia - decided to become socially responsible and improve the lives of citizens with the help of artistic and socio-cultural practices. Thanks to the initiative and persistence of Irina Sedykh, the good intention resulted in a festival marathon. Each festival is the next stage of the experiment, the results of which are unpredictable and can be evaluated only after implementation. It’s like in a child’s game “cold and hot” - you have to grope for the right path and determine those solutions that will be effective, will actually help people, improve their lives, bring something really meaningful into the environment, change the self-perception of the townspeople and turn them from spectators who they did not even buy tickets to the show, to the active participants in the evolutionary processes taking place in the city.
Into the "milk" …
If you analyze the history of festivals and especially the events in Vyksa between festivals, you can understand which solutions work and which do not, which practices hit the bull's-eye, and which go rather to the milk.
First of all, the effect of the three festival days as a one-time action, with all the splendor of the events, is almost never projected on the daily life of Vyksa residents. For the townspeople, these days are becoming something like a "flood" that falls on Vyksa and leaves, leaving a "legacy" in the form of art objects, the meaning of which was difficult for them to grasp. The result is graffiti and art objects destroyed both by vandals and simply in the process of refurbishing the facades, including unique ones that were of absolute value for contemporary Russian art.
Also, “unwanted gifts” do not pass the social check - seemingly really necessary objects, but created without participation and at least consultation with local residents. So one of the recently reconstructed courtyard complexes is abandoned. Children and adults continued to use the old, albeit typical, but "native" playground next door. The lessons of the "newcomers" cause rejection. A similar reaction can be seen from the local leadership, which globally supports the festival. The head of the Vyksa city district administration, Vladimir Kochetkov, spoke at the press conference "Art-Ovraga", the mayor's office participates in the implementation of many festival initiatives. But middle managers prefer to be neutral. For example, the management of the art school, next to which Druzhba, together with the residents, created a creative platform, did not come into contact with the initiative group and did not take any part in the project. For many heads of city departments, all conversations about a comfortable and urban environment still boil down to laying out flower beds with annuals, for example, the new "Arboretum" in the city park, and the arrangement of "amusing" garden sculptures in squares a la "Canyon of Fairy Tales" on Manezhnaya squares in Moscow. The inertia of familiar formats cannot be underestimated. Without constant external influence - the presentation of new solutions, calls for cooperation and a request from the city community - any initiative fades or degenerates.
The bull's eye"…
Art-Ovrag is a unique festival, primarily because it is evolving, which means it is viable. And this is the merit of the organizers, the initiators of the invited curators. All problem episodes and all methods that have not confirmed their effectiveness (some of which we have listed above) are analyzed and revised. As a result, the concept of the festival is being adjusted and, every year, new elements appear in it. It is interesting that the general vector of transformation of festival themes and formats coincides with the general trend for the whole of Russia, towards the development of urban spaces and the creation of active communities.
Instead of a three-day "flood", comprehensive, year-round programs and institutions began to work, aimed at popularizing contemporary art and urban practices, forming a constructive dialogue with citizens, involving them in developing an ideology and setting goals for the next festival. Irina Sedykh and Yulia Bychkova spoke about this at the press conference and other festival events. Last year, the Art Residence began to work in Vyksa, a prerequisite for participation in which is the presentation of the results of the work to local residents in the form of a lecture or an exhibition. The festival organizers plan to create a local art institution - an educational institution where talented Vyksa residents can try themselves in different street art genres and beyond. In addition, it is planned to launch a publishing program, the first project of which will be an encyclopedia of Russian street art, based on the collection of graffiti and murals already collected in Vyksa.
The “Mobile Workshop” program was launched, within the framework of which Svyatoslav Murunov, together with the residents of Vyksa and invited experts (cultural experts and engineers), is studying and designing new multifunctional residential yards. The experience gained will also be analyzed and used to prepare a methodological manual for the development of courtyard spaces, which will be included in the publishing program "Art-Ovraga".
After the experience with Misha Most's gigantic painting on the wall of the Metallurgical Plant workshop, which was chosen by "the whole world" at a competition, the plant workers now enthusiastically compete in the results of their products for the right to decorate their own workshop with the next graffiti.
Once again, the rafts, selected and built according to the results of the competition, now serve all the townspeople and are very popular among vacationers on the Upper Pond, as the original (there are only such boats in Vyksa).
The city benefits from the methods tested at the festival and its huge PR effect. Today Vyksa is not a town lost in the Murom forests, but the site of the largest regional art festival in Russia. The tourist flow is increasing every year. In 2015, it was 22 thousand, and in 2017 - already 50 thousand people came here to see local sights: and not only the “legacy” of “Art-Ovrag” in the form of art objects and art yards, but which now you can go through the quest, but also to the most important attraction - the metallurgical plant, for which 4 excursion routes have already been developed, allowing you to get acquainted with its unique brutal entourage and the famous "Shukhov Tower".
The unicorn art object (by Gabor Miklos Szoke (Hungary), created in 2013) has become almost the official symbol of the city. It was he who figured in most of the children's drawings at the exhibition "My Vyksa" on the Metallurgists Square this year.
The fame of the city and the Art-Ovrag festival helps to attract investors and sponsors for various urban endeavors, in addition to the festival itself.
The result of the work of a close-knit team of experts and the experience accumulated during the festival in the development of urban areas, was the project "Formation of the improvement of the Swan Paradise culture and recreation park from the embankment of the Upper pond of the Batashevskie ponds cascade", which won the All-Russian competition for projects of a comfortable urban environment in small towns and historical settlements in the category "Small towns with a population of 50 to 100 thousand people." This victory, which became known on the eve of the Art-Ovrag festival, judging by the reaction of the city and regional authorities, including the speech of the Acting Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Region Gleb Nikitin at the opening of the Art-Ovrag 2018 festival, became significant and truly inspiring achievement. The festival team showed how the efforts spent over eight years are being converted into large-scale programs to transform the city.
It's hard to imagine that according to the principle of rotation of curators every three years, the current team has only one more year to work. The groundwork that they have already laid, developing the principles and ideas of the previous team of curators, is designed for at least another five years of systematic implementation. To stop them and change the team means to doom the city to a new period of "shift change" and the loss of several years for the development and testing of a new concept. There is still at least a year before a decision is made on the next curators. And it would be great if the festival again adjusted its format and gave the current team a head start in an additional couple of years to implement everything that was conceived.
What will beauty save?
In addition to the quite positive impressions of the Art-Ovrag festival and the activities of its team, it was difficult to get rid of the feeling of vague anxiety. It is as if a person who seemed familiar passed by along the street, but it is impossible to remember who he is, and this does not give rest.
So in Vyksa, in the festive bustle and in the excitement of festival events, the feeling of something familiar never left, which lies at the heart of the whole concept of the festival, aimed at changing and improving the life of a particular city with the help of artists and works created by them. And only at the opening of the installation "IT'S NOT A DREAM" came the understanding: what is happening in Vyksa is a pure experiment to save the world with the help of beauty. This is the same quote from Dostoevsky's The Idiot, which, like a banner, was raised and carried through the 19th, 20th and now the 21st centuries by the Russian intelligentsia. That dream about transformation through enlightenment and ennobling, which has already been broken so many times against a reality indifferent to dreams. And most often it was broken only because those "saved" by beauty categorically did not want to either be saved at all, or to be saved by the very beauty that they were offered.
It was enough to see the next day after the opening of the installation "THIS IS NOT A DREAM" - the most beautiful, delicate and light work, how the aborigines enthusiastically throw stones at letters, just for "fun", to check whether it will be possible to throw a stone through the ring of the letter "o", in order to understand how long and thorny path lies ahead for the organizers of the festival, who cannot be called dreamers, and first of all, those of them who live and work in Vyksa, see and hear different things, including those that are not positive and not optimistic. They have come a long way, but there is still a lot of work ahead. I hope they don’t despair and don’t give up. Let them succeed, let at least here "beauty will save the world."
