Ekaterina Lomeeva’s Diary
Ekaterina Lomeeva (b. 1997, Moscow)
I’ve worked in the field of contemporary art since 2015 and study Cultural Studies at RSUH. My interests include contemporary art, visual culture, and gender studies (especially the “male” and “female” constructions in different cultural environments). I can easily find common ground with anyone and explain complex things in simple terms.
When you watch visitors throwing the ribbons, you can notice the absence of age or physical limitations. Visitors with disabilities enjoy the game as much as children. Adult visitors forget for a while about everyday troubles and behave like kids.
The destruction of the museum’s patronizing function allows people to receive information in accordance with John Dewey’s theory, meaning the best education is based on participation and personal experience.
During communication at Ladder Caféthe visitors felt their involvement in the process of cultural production: they were trying to figure out solutions to the questions on the mugs, remembering more and more examples from history. Answering the question about a manipulative art project, visitors referenced Marina Abramovic’s practice, asking “what manipulation actually means—is it a consequence of the artist’s intention, or the way the audience itself interprets the artist’s idea.”
Visitors from Tajikistan enthusiastically discuss a light box. “Wow, how realistically it looks! But, four thousand for a photo shoot? I’d rather shoot your wedding with my phone!”
Tea drinking blurs the social distance between educator and visitor. During evening sessions, the conversation often reaches beyond intellectual reflections turning to personal issues and private experiences. Intimate feelings in the context of museum visits come into foreground, with the concept of complicity often becoming the topic for discussing the possible options of interacting with the museum.
Some reflections of a Ladder Cafévisitor:
— What does tea drinking mean to you as part of your visit to the museum?
— Tea is an entire culture and aesthetics. By immersing into the cultural environment via tea drinking, we become a part of something bigger.
“Linda’s wardrobes invoked nostalgia of my childhood years. After the war, we had nothing. We played in the streets, using sticks, twigs, stones and, amazingly, ice! Ice on the sun was the most precious diamond. We had entire competitions where the main trophy was just ice.”
Watching people moving chaotically around the exhibition, you can notice the difference between visitors who have read explications, those ones who learnt everything from a mediator, and the third category—who simply walked by and decided to have a look at what’s going on in here. The difference is huge. The first type of visitors is relatively relaxed but cautious: they may enter the tower, ask in advance whether they can open the wardrobes or take the newspapers. The second category feel very easy, participate in Collective Strings, put on the masks, engage in games, and share their thoughts openly at Ladder Café. The third explore the space very cautiously, without touching anything, looking at mediators with silent questions in their eyes, trying to act in full compliance with regulations commonly in use in cultural institutions (don’t touch, don’t be noisy, etc.), and usually they quit Bureauvery quickly.
Thirty minutes before the museum closes. A girl aged around 25 is running across our space, destroying “ribbon enemies” with a wooden sword.
— Why do you feel so free in this part of the museum?
— I feel energized by the Bureauspace. We came here at 17 hours, stayed for a while, then left to see the Pepperstein show. Soon afterwards we were planning to leave, but I wished so much to return to Bureau! I think this is the only museum (she meant particularly theBureauproject) where everything can be touched and created without control. I can be myself here. Because I know no one would be watching every step of mine, and I can interact with all the items and installations on display. I feel like I am a part of this project.
Linda’s wardrobes:
“I see so many things here. This is wonderful, don’t even know where to look first. Perhaps you remember that in our childhood we had boxes with various stuff, like tickets, stones, shells. I had one. We brought them to school approximately once a month. And the kid with the most beautiful and full box became the most… I don’t know… the coolest person, as it were.”
Visitors leave their messages and wishes on the ribbons so eagerly! They are trying to make their ribbon particularly memorable. And take photos of and with them.
And they are so happy when they receive messages from other visitors via their Instagram accounts they’d put on the ribbons.
Ladder Café
“During a conversation, a question arose: why don’t we believe in anything supernatural, if art proves its existence in many possible ways?”
During a talk we agreed on a psychological theory which says that humans are unable to imagine things they haven’t seen in real life.
Bureau des transmissionsis an extremely important project which allowed me to see how much modern society is ready to work and interact with the Museum’s projects. Most of the visitors come not only to receive information at exhibitions—but also to share their experience. The time has come for the audience to have their say, but in order to do so, they need a new type of a museum worker, one who will listen to them and provide some space for a discussion, i.e. a mediator/educator.
While working on the project, I met a lot of like-minded people who think in a similar paradigm: people who reflect on the Museum’s space, the Museum’s future, the power of art, etc. This project gave me what I would call extraordinary inspiration. Communication is the most significant aspect of life for me, it’s my element, whose energy feeds my mind and helps to realize my ideas. This is why the participants’ mutual interest in a dialogue is the most important thing for me in any communication.
A mediator, however, is quite a flexible figure who has to “read” whether the visitor is in the mood for a conversation. People may come to a museum ready for communication. Such visitors already have certain ideas about culture. For them, Bureau des transmissions is a space where these ideas are interpreted from various new perspectives and acquire a verbal life, which is great. Others come here to spend time with themselves. For them, our space is a place for meditation, relaxation, and rest. Such visitors are usually not willing to talk, their logic is deeper. They can sit for hours on the platform watching other visitors’ activity, taking notes, or reading. Very rarely, they would come up to a mediator after spending a lot of time on their own—not even to ask something, but rather to instigate a conversation that would sometimes last for hours and give something unique to each of the participants in the end. The category of visitors that invoked my most passionate interest were the so-called “passersby”: with visitors, it is always a lottery, you never know what their reaction would be like in advance. But the response of the “passersby” always surprised me: after a brief summary of the show, the majority of such visitors wanted to stay—to explore the entire LAB space and each of the installations. Rather unexpectedly, I found a lot of inspiration in the stories of visitors from other regions and countries. Each of them stimulated my wish to learn as much as possible about their countries, cultures, traditions, etc.
Since I had been more used to working with large groups as a guide, the mediation experience was new to me. Before the start of the project, I was sure that not everyone at all would be ready to talk to a stranger tête-à-tête. But the two months spent at Bureau des transmissions proved the opposite: the visitors were so happy to be involved in communication and get an individual approach that many would return several times specially for another mediation session, bringing their friends, reflecting on the museum of the future, unable to imagine this institution without mediation anymore. Ladder Cafégave the mediators the freedom of interaction in a comfortable atmosphere: a cup of tea with a pleasant view through the window was certainly helpful in bringing the visitors closer to the mediators, while the active games organized near the wardrobes encouraged to make friends with visitors, who either had to become the mediator’s teammates or opponents, both during the games and in the discussions afterwards.
I’ve analyzed all of my conversations about what the museum of the future should be like, and this is the definition that I’ve got: the museum of the future is an open space where, along with acquiring information, visitors can also share it. The museum offers various formats of interacting with visitors, which can be divided, in terms of the depth of communication, into, for instance, lectures—where visitors only listen, and projects where they become the producers of installations (or any other things). Another important aspect of the museum of the future is its eco-friendly character and green space expansion. The museum is not just a leisure spot anymore (with a library, café, book and souvenir shop, cinema theater)—but also a place where anyone can find a comfort zone for themselves (by talking to a mediator, making something creatively, or merely spending time with a laptop). Even though Bureauis an experimental project, it demonstrated precisely how the visitors see the museum of the future. And as an art mediator, I am always happy to help them.