“The art residence unites the creative forces of all types of art”

Kommersant FM columnist Dmitry Butkevich talks, in particular, about the Yamal Biennale and the exhibition “This Whole World”.

Salekhard is the only city in the world located directly on the Arctic Circle. As confirmation: here you can play with the stele, which is located on the outskirts of the city. One step and you move from the Subpolar to the Arctic. By the way, as the locals are happy to tell you, previously those who worked, so to speak, further south were not paid the northern bonus, but now they are paid to the entire city. But this is the material side, and we are talking about the spiritual.

In 2020-2021, the Polaris art residence was created, which unites the creative forces of all types of art not only in the capital of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, but also in eight cities in the region where its branches have been established. In the fall of 2022, Polaris launched the Yamal Biennale, which was officially presented in December last year and will last until March. These are mainly audio promenades around the city. Of the stationary works, I noted only an ionospheric station painted in bright geometric shapes – the work of Anna Chervonna is called “Signal”.

And literally the art exhibition “This Whole World” has just opened in the building of the art residence itself. Ekaterinburg curator Zhenya Chaika brought together 12 artists, as the organizers define, “from the Urals, Siberia and Central Russia.” The authors selected by the curator, both the fairly well-known Ulyana Podkorytova, Vova Marin, and complete strangers to me, have been traveling around Yamal since August last year. Some wandered a little with reindeer herders, others talked with local tradition bearers. Many studied the Nenets language for six months in order to gain a deeper understanding of the culture of one of the indigenous minorities – this abbreviation hides the infuriating term “indigenous small peoples of the North.” The result was a multi-genre exhibition of reminiscences on the themes of deer, fishing, beliefs of the Nenets and Khanty, and their historical experiences of modern existence.

But the curators and artists did not answer my direct question, what was the super task, in theatrical terms, or the goal setting of the project, hiding behind talk about the need to preserve and take care of small cultures.