Dreams of the Central Pavilion
2015
Performance - photographic projections during the 10 nights of the Biennale, daily field work.
Photographic book - exhibited during the documentation phase of the Biennale.
6TH MOSCOW BIENNALE MAIN PROGRAM

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I believe that places accumulate memory on different levels. I also believe that we can create scenarios for the future by acting in the present. The first visit to the moon in human history was described as early as in 79 AD and was followed by many other stories imagined and described, until it actually happened centuries later with many real details coming from those earlier fantasies. Imagination is a prerequisite for treating something as attainable. We always live in the Moon Time.

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VDNH is a huge territory of The Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy in Moscow, Russia. Dating back to 1927, it has played an important part as a witness and a direct participant in the historical processes of the Soviet Union and then in Russia.

VDNH with its futuristic gigantic architecture from different times is a place of great power from the past and possibly the future, whose function at present is undefined, inarticulate. The place seems to be in slumber, or in a coma; even the way the park functions nowadays as an entertainment park brings us to the concept of a coma. Pop music playing outside the monumental buildings mixes with voices from the past, creating a peculiar feeling of unreal sentimentality, a surreal necropolis and a utopian sublime city at the same time.

VDNH and its central point - the Central Pavilion - are "sleeping". They can see "dreams/visions/hallucinations" from the past, the future and the present. I imagine that we can visualize these dreams and project them on the walls of the Pavilion and other buildings on VDNH territory. Dreams imply darkness and privacy, so the projections happen at nights.

The project was created during the 6th Moscow biennale of contemporary art in September-October 2015. I was documenting the nightly projections as well as everything happening around during the daytime, and gathering the images into a diary of the Pavilion's dreams.

All the photographs were taken by myself or credited in the INDEX. All the texts were said by the visitors of the biennale. All the artists and their works are credited in the INDEX.

Dreams of the Central Pavilion on Syg.ma