Garage and Tselinny Teen Weeks: Online Workshops for Teenagers with Kazakhstani and Russian Artists

An ongoing project launched by Anna and Vitaly Cherepanov in 2014, Theater under Cameras is a series of videos shot on city webcams. In 2019, the project was shortlisted for the Innovation Prize—Russia’s state award in contemporary art. Most of the videos document the Cherepanovs’ own performances, but some of them have captured other people, animals, or weather phenomena.

The artists will present their videos and speak about the making of Theater under Cameras, explain how similar videos can be produced, and offer several simple scenarios for collective actions or performances that can be shot using a program. Three days after the workshop, participants will be sent a link to an edited video.

Artist and co-author of the book A Brief History of Nizhny Novgorod Street Art Artem Filatov invites participants to plunge into the context of contemporary street art in Nizhny Novgorod and make a virtual trip around Tikhaya studio to get acquainted with its residents, watch a silk screen printing machine in action and engage in an art project!

About the studio:

Tikhaya art studio brings together artists living and working in Nizhny Novgorod, including Aleksander Lavrov, Anton Morokov, Andrey Olenev, Elena Toptunova, Artem Filatov, Yakov Khorev, and Vladimir Chernyshev. Most of its residents are involved directly in the city’s street art processes, collaborate with Nizhny Novgorod-based and Russian galleries, and exhibit in Russia and internationally.

During the workshop, participants will meet artist Gaysha Madanova and learn about her creative practice. Gaysha will explain how works can be present spatially and remain invisible to the viewer at the same time. She will also introduce them to the brain mapping technique, which she implements to create her artworks: brain mapping allows her to indicate objects and collect references on art practices and motives of interest. Together with the artist, participants will discuss historical art practices that have altered our view of art.

“In my art practice, I combine elements of diverse origins, transform them and change their original functions, be it the transformation of images from a museum collection into sound, a daily five-month-long broadcast of an artist’s dream in a museum, a 32-meter-long message about humanity’s hope for a better future on Mars which no one noticed, an art show that exists only in a magazine, or occupation of a public space with a guerilla poster and a T-shirt piercingly challenging the idea of “who” belongs to a particular society. As forms of intervention and work with space, these actions are parts of a strategy aimed at reimagining the outcomes of artistic production”.

What makes up the life of contemporary artists? Which topics do they choose to explore artistically? Participants will have the opportunity to “visit” an artist, learn more about them and their practice as well as make something with their own hands.

By blurring boundaries, the open online workshop format allows teens to find themselves in both places—Garage in Moscow and Tselinny in Almaty—simultaneously.

During the first session, hosted by the artist Madina Zholdybekova, participants will get acquainted with the notion of metaphor and try to implement it in illustration.

“Throughout the practical part, we will be trying to define the taste and color of metaphor, biting it from different sides and breathing in its smells. We will assemble a metaphor using cucumbers and tomatoes, squares and roundels, giraffes and cockerels. Participants will train their imagination muscles and learn to demonstrate curiosity for the world.”

HOW TO TAKE PART
Free with advance registration.
Sessions are in Russian.
Link to the Zoom session will be sent via the email indicated upon registration.
Teenagers aged 13–19 are invited to take part.
Class time is standard Almaty time.
Registration 40 seats