Yana Sidikova’s Diary

Yana Sidikova (b. 1994, Yekaterinburg)
Mediator at the III Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, Yekaterinburg (2015) and the Portal Zaryadye exhibition project at Schusev Museum of Architecture, Moscow (2018), I am a second-year master’s student at the Cultural Studies School of NRC HSE. My scope of interests is based around the art museum as a space that builds a variety of connections between the artworks, the modern context, my questions, and someone else’s stories, each time leading to some new, often very subtle, intersections. Whether it is possible to use them in the future remains an open question, an answer to which I will be looking for at Bureau des transmissions.

It is exciting to keep a diary that someone is actually going to read. By the time I began putting this text together I had done five shifts at the venue, but here I’m going to record my observations without references to dates—this way it is easier to put an incoherent flow of thoughts, bits of conversations, and some actions in order. I’ve been drowning in it recently (a lot of things seem obvious or superficial), but I’ll try to remember how to swim as soon as I can, and how to hold breath under water.

Another important remark: there are going to be dialogues in this script that in fact are not a precise transcription of my conversations with people. They are merely “puzzles” composed from many different talks echoing each other. In my opinion, they also intersect with my own observations.

But you are free to disagree with me, of course.

The space

It seems interesting to me how the work Collective Strings invokes very opposite types of emotions: from joy and child’s delight (indeed, isn’t it great to throw ribbons, wrap them around everything, scream with pleasure and feel free and relaxed?) to estrangement and, perhaps, even rejection. One wishes to enjoy the colored threads and play with them forever, but at some point (not always of course) this cobweb reminds of a tumor that rapidly invades a healthy body. On the one hand, the “strings” create physical obstacles: block the way, catch hairpins, take away the time required to put the piece back in order. On the other, their “colorful mop”, like the tender voice of the fairy-tale mermaid, spellbinds or distracts, prevents oneself from concentrating on the discussion of serious topics, forces the poor “sailor-traveler” follow it. And visitors themselves begin to notice that the museum is not a “museum” anymore, that, because of these ribbons, it looks like an attraction park, or a kids’ room in a shopping center.

This is neither good, nor bad. The artist’s work is already a success if it instigates to build various chains of interpretations and throw in new questions.

This is how, gradually, Collective Strings transforms a set of metaphors concealing the subjects of a “beautiful package”, a Moscow traffic jam, lingering time, useless/meaningless labor, and, finally, the myth of a liberated museum space. The latter only further supports the idea that freedom doesn’t equal chaos. Even a very open museum should have rules and limitations, which is normal.

But some would disagree. 

A visitor takes a cup from the microsillons project and reads:

— “Every year the audience is offered the chance to conquer Garage for one day. Festive atmosphere governs in the Museum.” Great, I love it!
— Do you think it is true?
— Sure, this is how it should be.

It would be interesting to continue the dialogue, but the visitor goes away.

…

People play a lot in the space of Bureau des transmissions, as if the venue is meant for games. And whereas the work Translation Wardrobe is openly intended at play (the artist deliberately leaves various toys in the wardrobe and remembers her favorite childhood games), Ladder Café also loses its natural mode at a certain point, turning into a game—a game in the form of a café.

— What kind of tea do you prefer: green or black?
— Green.
— And which questions have you chosen?

Visitors sort of seem to feel that their presence here is part of the planned scenario, their answers—fragments of the artwork/performance based on a script and implying a beginning and ending (even though we do not follow any strict scenarios left by the artists as backup plan, instead we choose the topics and questions that really interest us).

— I’ve chosen the cup with the question “Can art transform our life?” because I’m absolutely sure that yes, it can.

He finishes his tea, puts the cup back and prepares to leave.

At such moments the question comes up again: why are some conversations are short and not really meaningful? Do they have to be developed, or does it mean your interlocutor is simply not “your type of person”? And what is your type of person then? Should we look for new communication tools in such situations?

Another note or thought that I would like to develop further in the future.

The art

Of course, it’s not always like that: sometimes the border between “game” and “reality” is torn, and a passionate conversation breaks out.

— But? Wait, does art necessarily have a positive effect? For instance, yesterday I saw an exhibition after which I wished I could wash myself.
— Really? What kind of exhibition was it?

There are also visitors who believe that “contemporary” isn’t equally good as “high” art, since “high” art is beautiful and improves our life, while “contemporary” is about something evil, is unable to change anything, as it only critiques (and put this way, not everyone eagerly admits that it can also propel changes).

I suggest discussing these topics more often over a cup of tea at the microsillons “ladder”.

The visitors

Returning to Linda’s games, one of them resembles Jenga. The participants are a group of people, while their task is to pull, using porcelain sticks, one by one other porcelain sticks from a pile. The game assumes there has to be a winner, so it is interesting to follow the interaction between the players who know each other well. Someone is ready to sacrifice their position aiming to help the others: s/he deliberately rakes the pile in order to create new possibilities for the rest of the players (according to my observations, this role was once played by a father who came with his family). There are players who put the stick back after a failed attempt, so that during the next round another participant wouldn’t get it. Others, on the contrary, try to pull a different stick ignoring the favorable combination left after the previous player’s move.

On the other hand, games have for a long time been considered absorbents of social relations, so is there any use in saying that such cases could help to study some social topics?

…

I do not always wish to explain Ladder Café directly, because the visitor can offer their own vision of this work.

— No, it doesn’t look like a ladder at all to me.
— Then what?
— It’s a Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but bigger.
— Great! It is about needs, indeed! So, let us think what human needs can occur in a museum space, and why people need museums at all.

Let us think?