They don't just show how museums help solve social problems.
Russia is experiencing a real boom in socio—cultural design - museums are increasingly becoming a platform where not only certain artifacts are displayed, but also a place where people talk about topical and often complex social issues. There are examples of similar projects all over the country: an exhibition about Tree Stumps was opened in Moscow, and the exhibition in Tulun reflected on the collective trauma after the flood. There are examples when they talked to visitors of the museum space about bullying, xenophobia, etc. Moreover, the conversation about social problems through art went far beyond museums. Izvestia investigated how culture helps society to understand its problems and honestly talks about its pains.
"We need to change the culture"
The "Exhibition about tree stumps" at the Museum of Moscow, which opened in early December, can hardly be called ordinary. There is a long dark corridor from which you can enter small rooms. There are photographs on the walls, the content of which is far from always pleasant: corridors that look like hospital rooms (in fact, boarding schools where people live), people for whom the world is limited by the space of one institution, and sometimes one room. In this dark section of the exhibition, neuropsychiatric boarding schools are shown as they are, with the help of photographs by the famous photographer Yuri Kozyrev.
Nearby there are stands with photographs taken by the ambrotype method, which, according to Yuri Kozyrev, allow for a deeper understanding of the person who is the hero of the picture. A couple of the windows are empty, because anyone can be in the PSNI and the problem of boarding schools concerns everyone.
The exhibition also has a light section: how the lives of people who have ended up in neuropsychiatric boarding schools can be arranged. There are a lot more smiles in the photos, there are volunteers with people nearby, even the clothes are different. This is the hall where the positive changes in the stumps are shown.
Another part is the exhibition of the artist Alexei Sakhnov, who lives in St. Petersburg's PNR, but his work is shown in galleries around the world. This section is also needed to show how different people live in boarding schools.
In 2024, this project was working in Nizhny Novgorod under the name "The most closed exhibition". And it created a sensation that even the organizers themselves did not expect — after all, the topic is very difficult, and there were doubts whether it was worth opening such a project in the city center. It turned out to be worth it: instead of the expected 3-4 thousand visitors, 12 thousand came. At that time, the government of the Nizhny Novgorod region recognized that society was ready to talk about the lives of people with mental disabilities, and the exhibition helped it in this.
What can the exhibition change?
Nyuta Federmesser, the author of the People's Front's Region of Care project, emphasizes: the main and obvious result of the exhibition about STUMPS, which first opened in Nizhny Novgorod and is now taking place in Moscow, is what happens to the people who pass through it.
Nyuta Federmesser (left), head of the Palliative Care Center and founder of the Vera Hospice Foundation, at the opening of the exhibition "Stumps. The country's most closed exhibition" at the Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum, March 29, 2024
— We conceived it as a door to a parallel world that exists here and now, but invisible. And that door opened," she told Izvestia. — Success is not about immediately rebuilding the system. The success is that society finally has a chance to see and feel that this parallel world is not dangerous, but on the contrary, full of love. In Moscow, the same story repeats itself as in Nizhny Novgorod. People started coming up to us with the same question: "Is it really nearby? And what can I do?" This is the very shift — when curiosity and even fear of the closed world turn into belonging.
According to her, with the help of the exhibition, it is possible to fight stigma and ignorance. Visitors see people who live in boarding schools: their faces, dreams, art. It's getting harder to dismiss the problem.
— And this understanding gives rise to action. Someone visits the exhibition website for the first time and searches for a place to come as a volunteer in the "Care Navigator" section. Some officials, having passed through these halls, stop turning away from the "uncomfortable" topic and start looking for solutions. The system is starting to change not because an order has come from above, but because a demand for humanity has been formed from below, from society," Nyuta Federmesser emphasized.
Inna Prilezhaeva, Executive Director of the Association of Cultural Managers, during a discussion during the press screening of the "Exhibition about Tree Stumps" at the Victory Museum
This is "slow work," but it turns indifference into interest, and then into responsibility.
Inna Prilezhaeva, Executive Director of the Association of Cultural Managers and producer of the Exhibition about STUMPS project, notes that social changes after the exhibition are difficult to measure quickly, especially since there are no proven methods in Russia for assessing the impact of a socio-cultural project on a declared social problem, as well as institutions that would allocate funds for such research projects.
But we can already talk about the first results. For example, the activity of volunteer programs in Nizhny Novgorod PNIs has really increased. In complex topics, we need a request from society, and the exhibition helps to form this request.
How museums began to work with social problems
Inna Prilezhaeva calls the museum a "social institute of public memory." If earlier it played the role of "storage of curiosities", now it is a socially significant space.
In Russia, the active development of socio-cultural design began in the early 2000s. By 2017-2018, there were about 100-150 successfully implemented projects dedicated to solving social problems.
Inna Prilezhaeva lists examples. The Garage Center for Contemporary Art has been conducting a separate program for working with migrants for many years. The Lights of Moscow Museum has implemented the "See the Invisible" project, which is dedicated to visually impaired visitors. The State Museum of the History of Russian Literature named after V. I. Dahl created the project "Just not me" on the topic of teenage bullying, and in the Irkutsk region there was a project "The Museum of the flood in Tulun. What to do when you're scared." It opened shortly after the catastrophic flood and helped people to comprehend the collective trauma.
"The boom of the last 10 years has grown out of the natural development of the museum as an institution that should not only preserve, but also talk to society on topical issues, from inclusion to social trauma," Inna Prilezhaeva emphasized.
Anna Makarchuk, director of the Jewish Museum's Tolerance Center and Candidate of Psychological Sciences, calls this a natural evolution of museums that have rethought their mission, shifting their focus from collecting and displaying artifacts to creating a deep personal experience for each visitor.
— This human-centered revolution is turning museums into spaces of transformation, where each artifact becomes a bridge between the past and a person's personal history. The museum is no longer just storing valuables — it is becoming a "third place" and an active participant in solving social problems," she told Izvestia.
The Jewish Museum, in particular, has an exhibition dedicated to working with xenophobia, stereotypes and intercultural interaction. It was created by young people aged 16-23 — psychologists, philologists and artists who worked together on subjects and visual language. Each of the five stories explores its own theme: stereotypes, ethnocentrism, discrimination, cultural distance, and chauvinism. This exhibition will have a material continuation: the resulting comics will be included in a printed collection and will become educational material for schools and universities.
Elizaveta Fokina, General Director of the Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve, talks about a joint project with the Anton Foundation Nearby — an exhibition of naive folk art "People should be Different" was held in the Small Palace. Along with the museum's collection of naive art, the works of the foundation's wards, which supports people with ASD, were shown.
— Only meticulous visitors could read below that this work was painted by a naive artist of the last third of the twentieth century, and this painting was painted by a ward of the Anton foundation. In fact, they turned out to be works that were close to each other," she told Izvestia.
According to her, this is one of the ways to raise this or that issue. And when the exhibition traveled across the regions, it was joined by a series of problematic discussions, round tables with the participation of local NGOs, etc. Every time it was a reason for dialogue.
"The museum can no longer be just an observer, but becomes a kind of active citizen who tries to raise and solve problems," says Elizaveta Fokina.
Who the exhibitions work with
According to Inna Prilezhaeva, people with "slightly higher passionarity" go to the museum, but they are completely different people — not at all the conventional "intelligentsia". And they begin to speak in an understandable language with this society. The same "Exhibition about Stumps" raises questions primarily not about boarding schools, but about the people themselves who came to this exhibition.
Anna Makarchuk notes that most museums have their loyal communities involved in their events and projects. But this space remains massive, including through passive engagement, when teachers who have passed through the exhibition tell students about this experience, journalists distribute texts and photographs, etc.
The Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve turns out to be a place that unites completely different people: someone comes to this territory to play sports, someone just for a walk, others purposefully go to the museum space. And you can work with everyone, says Elizaveta Fokina.
— And when we do such special projects and programs, it is unclear who needs them more — the "beneficiaries", as they are called, or everyone else who may face this kind of problem for the first time, — she notes. — We are becoming a kind of bridges between different communities.
Socio-cultural projects work, however, not only for the public, but also directly for those whose problems are being solved. In this sense, the All-Russian project to support people with cancer "Chemistry was, but we broke up" is interesting. There, people undergo phototherapy after cancer to see themselves with new eyes after treatment. Exhibitions of the resulting photographs and stories are held in the subway, public spaces, etc.
— The project was created primarily for those who are faced with the disease. This keeps you in the mood for recovery, helps you start a new life "after," says Svetlana Polyakova, head of the Chemistry project, but we broke up. — The project for the public is an important, but already the next step. Positive stories demonstrate that cancer is not a sentence, but a chronic disease. We are not showing a disease, but people who have been treated and live brightly and openly.
This project helps to reduce oncophobia and gives society "a new language for talking about cancer: not out of pity and fear, but out of respect and support." But art here becomes not a goal, but a tool.
Behind the walls of the museum
The exhibition "Chemistry was, but we broke up" is a case where a social problem is discussed through culture using actually "museum" methods, but beyond its limits.
There are many such examples. One of the most famous is inclusive film festivals, in particular Cinema Without Barriers, which is organized by the Perspektiva regional public organization for people with disabilities. The festival has been held since 2002. Some of the filmmakers themselves have some kind of disability, and the films tell how people with disabilities live and self-actualize. This year, with the support of SIBUR's Formula for Good Deeds program, the festival expanded to the Cinema Without Barriers: a Regional Echo project in Kazan and Voronezh. Starting in 2025, the festival will be held annually in Moscow. Admission to all sessions is free, and the festival becomes an open public space.
"The main goal of the festival is to talk about inclusion without stereotypes and make it a part of everyday life," said Denis Michel Rosa, founder and director of the Cinema Without Barriers International Film Festival. — Through the stories on the screen, visitors will recognize in characters with disabilities feelings that are generally understandable to everyone — love, loss, dreams of family, work and recognition. Cinema allows you to discuss the topic of disability without embarrassment.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
