2016 Festival booklet / Буклет фестиваля

Public art
July 23 — August 7
The Secret Garden
Authors
Nadezhda Anfalova, Peter Belyi, Semen Motolyanets,
Denis Patrakeev, Alexander Podobed, “Sever 7” art–group
Place
Anna Akhmatova Museum’s garden, 53 Liteiny pr.,
metro station “Mayakovskaya”
Open–air exhibition consists of art objects, installations and
performances by contemporary St. Petersburg artists who create
their works in the public eye in a city park.
In Friedrich Nietzsche’s work “On the Genealogy of Morality”
philosophical effort is compared with the cultivation of the secret
garden. “The Secret Garden” is an unexpected encounter with our
own emotions, thoughts and inner silence. “Our treasure is there,
where stand the hives of our knowledge” (Nietzsche).
The project involves not only the philosophical concept interpretation
by contemporary artists, not just an attempt of materialization
of fruits of their own thoughts in the form of public
art, but also a new urban space mythologizing, namely the Anna
Akhmatova Museum’s garden, a new poetic reading of this historical
place. Created specifically for the project, installations
become the visual poetry, expressed in a tangible form.
To infiltrate into the garden, out of view from the busy streets,
to find the hidden access it is an experience that is comparable
to the discovery of the unknown. The project encourages the
viewer to get a feeling of sudden finding artworks in urban environment.
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