STAGE — annual graduate exhibition of the Art & Science Master’s degree program of ITMO University.

STAGE 2022 is located in the former church that now houses laboratories and classrooms of ITMO University. A young generation of art & science artists is making a bold intervention into the historical space. Here post-Internet aesthetics enter into a dialogue with classical interiors, and pseudo-Gothic coexists with virtual environment. At the crossroads of eras, artists reflect on the non-linear nature of time, experiment with form and redefine the boundaries of both art and science. Exhibited art projects are based on research conducted by students during their studies at the master’s program..
The crossover of different styles in the architecture of the building echoes throughout artworks. Eclecticism is characterised by blurring the boundaries and redefining canons that is similar to the young artists’ spirit of freedom. Combining different methods, forms and concepts in a single exposition, the exhibition seeks to display a syncretic image of modernity. The constellation of images forms a mosaic of new scientific and technological art generation.
Media archeology (A. Pogrebnyak) coexists with the archeology of data (K. Gorlanova), soil reconstruction (G. Alferova) coheres with an embodied experience of being an infant (D. Logvinenko). Artists reflect on the public (D. Lekontseva; A. Ilchenko and D. Iakimov) and personal (K. Bahtina) upheavals. Visualise the synergy of art and science (E. Gordeeva and K. Rakhmanova; R. Smirnov). Rethink bioart techniques and materials (E. Tsvetkova), and redefine the position of non-human agents within the planetary unity (M. Moshchenskaia, V. Prizova, S. Farhan, M. Shalepo). And material objects infiltrate virtual worlds (N. Bei, U. Lyubenova), exposing the post-digital condition.

Artists are united in an attempt to cut through different layers of modernity. This gesture resembles an archeological practice.. Combined traces of the past create a chain of possible scenarios in which the present returns the past to the future. Projects document reality, dissect digital memory, and create a speculative space that changes the perception of time, relationships, and ultimately the person himself. Relying on the utopian potential of technology, images of a future that has not yet come protrude through cracks in the surface of the present.

Curators: Khristina Ots, Asya Kaplan
Technical Director: Alexey Feskov
Exhibition Coordination: Yana Sazanskaya

Engineers: Pavel Lekshin, Ruslan Bobko, Rostislav Shtennikov
Website Work: Sofia Tugusheva
Design and Layout: Mila Lutsyk
Editing and Translation: Khristina Ots, Asya Kaplan, Aliya Sakharyev


The following people worked on the exhibition installation:

Evdokia Bannaya, Anna Porutchikova, Anna Permyakova, Ekaterina Tkachenko, Angelina Balina, Daria Bortko,
Ekaterina Rastvortseva,
Anastasia Bondarenko

Artists:

Daria Lekontseva, Alexander Pogrebnyak, Danila Logvinenko, Daniil Yakimov and Anna Ilchenko, Ksenia Bakhtina, Elizaveta Tsvetkova, Evgenia Gordeeva and Karina Rakhmanova, Roman Smirnov, Ulyana Lyubenova, Nadezhda Bey, Maria Moschenskaya, Siraj Farhan, Veronika Prizova, Mikhail Shalepo, Ksenia Gorlanova, Galina Alferova, Anton Shchegolev

Co-curated by Asya Kaplan