It’s close by. Let’s be neighbors
The project «It’s close by. Let’s be neighbors» is a multi-part social research on the formation of local communities through the artistic practices. The installation is dedicated to the residents of the Sokol district in Moscow and was realised thanks to their participation. The exhibition took place in May and June 2021 in the «Na Peschanaya» Gallery in the same location.
3d visualization of installation and exposition view at the show
The exhibition included works by local amateur artists as well as documentary stories related to the life of the neighbourhood, as well as the results of workshops and the fieldwork that started the dialogue with the tenants All of this was collected and shown not so much as individual works, but as documentation of making community and constructing communication between neighbors.
Before the start of the research, tenants willing to share their stories about Sokol were sought out. Conversations were made on the street, through neighbourhood social media groups and at workshops held as part of the project. Later there was a circle of people who knew each other indirectly or through a few handshakes.
handshake scheme at the exhibition
One way of making contact with tenants was handcraft workshops organised at a local gallery.
In the first collage workshop, participants were asked to make a collage from one of the paintings taken from the entrances of the building where the gallery is located. The amateur collage artist next door provided magazine clippings for the workshop.
The second one involved cross-stitching a plant, based on embroidery schemes taken from photographs of entrance plants.
Some locals have agreed to give their works at the exhibition, such as one man who used to own a tyre repair shop, but now has bought an old tent next to the garages and turned it into a workshop where he makes swans and other tyre objects, called zhkkh-art* in Russia. An interview with the participant was also presented at the show.
*housing and utilities art
The exhibition is structured in such a way that behind each object there is a person and their history. The project aims to tell neighbors about each other. The project aims to tell neighbors about each other and provides an opportunity to form a local community.
residents who were involved in the project came to the opening
In addition, grassroots initiatives by residents are very well developed in Sokol. A district deputy told the story about the doorknobs from the flats of the building from the fifties. One day, thieves unscrewed beautiful shaped doorknobs and put them up on a personal items sale website. Later, the tenants got together, bought them back and returned to their home.
Another story was about a painting. A resident of the house where the gallery is located came to visit his neighbor and offered to decorate their entryway with a painting that the neighbor was doing.
At the exhibition, viewers were also asked to answer the question of whether they communicate with their neighbors and put the answer in their letterbox.
The project also involved artists based at Sokol district, who regularly post their work to neighborhood social media groups. The exhibition featured watercolors by Fedor Yudin. For his series dedicated to Peshanaya Street he took archival photographs by users of the PastVu website and supplemented them with his own details: the leaves on the trees became thicker, there were fewer cars on the roads, and the fountain began to beat harder.
The show was also an event that brought together people living in the area where the gallery is located and participants. The project was a starting point for conversation between neighbors, setting a vector for the formation of a community o tenants. «It’s close by. Let’s be neighbors» resulted in a zine about the project and each exhibitor.
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Thanks to
to the curator Alexandra Kuznetsova, the manager of the «Na Peschanaya Gallery» (2021) Anastasia Vasilieva, Alexander Zhuravlev, Stepan Subbotin
to all who involved in the project
Olga Barsukova and Maria Barsukova, Tatiana Belousova and Svetlana Belousova, Yulia Samarina and Maria Samarina, Evgeny Vereshchagin, Yulia Gaiduk, Vladimir Zaikin, Anna Paderina, Larisa Rubina, Galina Khromeshina, Olga Soboleva, Daria Tolyneva, Fedor Yudin, Olga Korsakova, Nina Krukova, Yury Kulagin and all the neighbors of thе gallery
