Manifest Tenderness
St. Petersburg. Embodiment of artists’ fantasy and symbol of hope for change for the whole of Russia. It is also a shelter for all tender creatures, who escape small Russian towns with their prison-like rules of survival to become artists in the city of palaces and squares, sur-rounded by water. These tender creatures appear in the majestic buildings of state art acad-emies, where nothing changed for last 150 years, except the potted plants. Both professors and students are worshiping the pantheon of great Russian culture of past and dream to join its gods: Pushkin, Tchaikovsky, Repin and others at least posthumously.
The statues of these gods can be found in the streets and squares, used by the state as grounds for military parades. Such museumified city is convenient for the state. However after another parade or excursion people return to the city suburbs called «sleeping dis-tricts» as there is nothing to do but taking a short rest in between exhausting rounds of prison-like survival and may be one day become a cannon fodder in another war. Whenever people rise up to fight for their rights, police clears them off the streets as if they were rub-bish.
As a result all real life flows, water like, into the spaces of “internal” Petersburg: dark laby-rinths of courtyards, stairs and corridors bringing forth the peculiar make-believe world of St. Petersburg. This is where we meet our characters who are all part of St Petersburg’s re-sistance.
The statues of these gods can be found in the streets and squares, used by the state as grounds for military parades. Such museumified city is convenient for the state. However after another parade or excursion people return to the city suburbs called «sleeping dis-tricts» as there is nothing to do but taking a short rest in between exhausting rounds of prison-like survival and may be one day become a cannon fodder in another war. Whenever people rise up to fight for their rights, police clears them off the streets as if they were rub-bish.
As a result all real life flows, water like, into the spaces of “internal” Petersburg: dark laby-rinths of courtyards, stairs and corridors bringing forth the peculiar make-believe world of St. Petersburg. This is where we meet our characters who are all part of St Petersburg’s re-sistance.