Curators of six exhibitions organized with the participation of people with disabilities and various experiences as co-curators, artists, and viewers, will share experiences of working on their projects and discuss whether their past strategies remain relevant today. The conversation will draw on exhibitions that took place in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod from 2016 to 2022.
All of the projects selected for the discussion were considered inclusive at the time and place of their making. At the exhibition Co-thinkers (Garage, Moscow, 2016) and the later iteration of the same project at Arsenal Center for Contemporary Art (Nizhny Novgorod, 2019), people with disabilities took part as co-curators. The project Human Commonalities (Vadim Sidur Musuem, Moscow 2016) explored the ways in which differently abled people experience art and the ways of engaging them in contemporary art. The Art of Being (National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Moscow, 2019) focused on removing barriers and making contemporary art accessible. Beyond Establishment (State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, 2021–2022) presented works by contemporary non-professional neurodiverse artists. Finally, The Athanor. The Haptic eye and non-visual perception (Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. Moscow, 2022) was not presented as an inclusive project but focused on differences in perception.
Moderator
Lyuda Luchkova, Head of Education and Inclusive Projects at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art
Participants
Maria Sarycheva is a cultural historian, curator, and creator of educational programs. She holds an MA in Applied Cultural History from the Higher School of Economics (Moscow, 2014). From 2015 to 2016, she was a coordinator of inclusive projects at Garage. From 2019 to 2023 she was an accessibility and inclusion coordinator at the State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow). Since 2021, she has been a yuldash curator at ZAMAN MUSEUM (Ufa). In 2016, she co-curated the exhibition Co-thinkers (Garage, Moscow).
Evgenia Kiseleva-Afflerbach is an art historian, audio describer, and curator. She is a Candidate of Cultural History (State Academy of Slavic Culture, Moscow, 2011) and a PhD student at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany. In 2016, she was an intern at MoMA New York. As head of interdisciplinary projects at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Art, she curated the projects Look from the Inside (2020–2021) and The Alchemist’s Cauldron (2022).
Iaroslav Aleshin is a curator of exhibitions and public, cultural, and education programs. He graduated in Russian Philology and Culture from Yaroslavl State Pedagogical University in 2005. Starting from the early 2000s, he organized and coordinated independent public initiatives in Yaroslavl and Moscow. From 2015 to 2019, he headed the Vadim Sidur Museum (Moscow), where he initiated a dynamic exhibition and public program, and in particular curated the exhibition Human Commonalities (2016). He received the Innovation State Prize in Contemporary Art for Curator of the Year in 2020. Sine 2019, he has worked as a curator of exhibition projects and urban integration programs at V-A-C (Moscow).
Olga Goncharova is an art historian and curator. She graduated in History and Theory of Fine Art from St. Petersburg Repin Academy of Fine Arts (2011) and in Management and Business from St. Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance (2007). She has been working at the State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg) since 2008, and since 2015 has been the head of its inclusive programs department, which develops programs and services for various groups of visitors and organizes exhibition projects featuring non-professional artists, such as Beyond Establishment (2021–2022).
Ekaterina Malyarova is a creator and manager of projects in culture and education, journalist, teacher, and screenwriter. She graduated in Philology from Nizhny Novgorod State University in 2009. From 2015 to 2020, she was the chief expert of the culture and education department at Arsenal Center for Contemporary Art (Nizhny Novgorod). She co-curated the public and inclusive programs for the project The Art of Being and organized and moderated events for the exhibition Co-thinkers (2019–2020).
Nadezhda Gura is a culture and art historian and curator. In 2010, she graduated in Cultural History from the Institute of the History of Cultures and in 2023, and in Art History from the Doctoral School of Arts and Design at the Higher School of Economics (Moscow). In 2019, she curated the project The Art of Being at the National Center for Contemporary Arts, Moscow. She currently heads the center for further education at OANO Skolka.
