Mediators’ diaries dedicated to the project Silence

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Hi there!
To begin with, I am very happy to be part of this unique project.
Even before the start of the working process, the title Silence initially attracted me. I realized immediately that it would be a very interesting, unusual, and profound installation, which it turned out to be, indeed. When I first saw the garden, I wanted to stay there for a long time, such a pleasant place it was, a place reigned by harmony and peace.
While preparing to conduct mediation sessions, I reflected on what I was going to talk about, what questions to ask, etc. But before starting a dialogue with visitors, it was necessary to understand what this place meant to me. In my mind, Paweł Althamer's garden is associated with ancient Greek gardens&mdash;places for solitude, philosophical contemplation, and conversations. In modern realities, the artist's installation seemed to be an island of peacefulness, where one could escape from the bustling metropolis to relax, gain strength and energy, and stay alone with oneself.
The first mediations were a little exciting. Even though I had some previous experience of such practices, this project entailed its own nuances and specifics. The first of them was that the installation was located outside, in Gorky Park, which is why the audience was very diverse, often completely unprepared for such an experience. Nevertheless, most of our garden&rsquo;s guests were open to communication and had a positive attitude, which made me very happy. Sometimes a person did not have time to stay longer, and I could only briefly inform them about our wonderful project. But the most pleasant moments of my work were the moments of lengthy and thoughtful conversations with visitors about art&mdash;and this was genuine mediation.
Summing up, I want to say that it was an amazing experience, useful both for the installation's visitors and me. Over the course of the project, I began to understand better the psychology of visitors who came to the museum&mdash;what they want to see, what they are ready to discuss, and what thoughts contemporary art invokes in them. I&rsquo;ve also had a very pleasant time at Silence.

Katya Goloschapova’s Diary

I am a history student and have always wanted to connect my work with education. I like it when people can share their knowledge and experience and thus acquire something new.
Unfortunately, at the history faculty, we are not taught to express our thoughts and observations on the studied subject in a non-academic way, which is why I was often afraid of being unheard because of the inability to start a dialogue in a &ldquo;language&rdquo; comprehensible to both of the sides involved.
In many ways, The Silence garden helped me develop the skill of communicating with entirely different people. Over the several weeks of preparation and the project itself, which was on from June 1 through September 30, its wonderful manager, together with our coordinators, ran a lot of reading groups, whereby we shared our reflections and observations and discussed texts on the mediation issues together: these were amazing discussions which emerged from enthusiasm and the wish to achieve a proper result. Obviously, I wanted to immediately use every grain of knowledge in practice, which at first often led to a mismatch between expectations and reality. But when you remember some of your elder friends&rsquo; advice, you understand that a conversation can be drawn from any situation. Yes, sometimes it was not entirely about art and meditation. From time to time, we met people who just wanted to talk or were embarrassed by our presence (&ldquo;Why do we need mediators if everything is clear anyway?&rdquo;). But if a moderator starts speaking at the right moment, then, even if it doesn&rsquo;t end up in mediation proper, perhaps, it will generate an interest in the visitor toward what is going on around and help the moderator/mediator achieve their main goal&mdash;attract visitors to art. It was a huge and pleasant discovery to find out how many people are ready to discuss the garden in philosophical and art historical terms. Some of them were so inspired as we listened carefully to their reflections that it eventually turned into a comprehensive mediation session that could last for dozens of minutes.
I had the chance to work on the opening and closing days of Silence and see how myself and other participants have changed over the course of the project and how our wonderful garden accumulated new meanings and stories. In conclusion, I would like to thank all the people who have visited this unique space for their emotions and captivating observations, which turned into an unforgettable and rewarding experience.

Viktor Kolchin’s Diary

The wonderful Silence project, where, dare I say this, I was lucky enough to work, ended yesterday.
It was a remarkable experience already because I spent four months in a green man-made garden, communicating with different but mainly pleasant and interesting people. Many interesting things happened during this time, which I will try to describe. Rather than a diary proper, this text is composed of my memories, reflections, and emotions invoked by our Silence.
My role in this project was not quite ordinary. I was neither a mediator nor an invigilator, but a person whose function was to inhabit, to revive the installation space with their presence, to become a genius loci of sorts. As you know, Paweł Althamer has already used this gimmick in other works. I suppose that my presence in the installation was helpful since I repeatedly heard from visitors that as they saw someone sitting on a log, walking around, watching plants, and so on, it made them want to get inside and see what&rsquo;s going on there.&nbsp;
Now, more specifically. As I already wrote, most of the visitors had a positive attitude. They knew what Garage is and had an interest in contemporary art. There were especially many such visitors on the days when meditation sessions were held in the space of Silence. And it was all the more interesting with people, initially inclined toward denial, as sometimes I was still able to persuade them to look at it from a different angle. There were visitors who said that they would go and see the exhibition in the main building right away: they got intrigued. Very few visitors ended up proclaiming unpleasant things about the installation and me, e.g., &ldquo;Only a town whack job can sit in here&rdquo; or &ldquo;If you position this space as a place of rest, take away the logs on which it is impossible to sit and put benches instead to make it comfy&rdquo; (this is a quote). Some demanded to arrange a water supply (to make a lake or stream), allow them to burn a fire, discussed the &ldquo;weird people lying in broad daylight on the sand&rdquo; (during the meditation process), and photographed them without permission. One character spoke out against spending money on contemporary art in general, as &ldquo;it would be better to build a canteen, which was here before.&rdquo; Speaking about the logs, they aroused keen interest and were extremely popular throughout the project. Everyone wanted to sit on them and find a comfortable place for themselves. During the heat, resin appeared on the logs, which everyone smelled and admired with much joy.&nbsp;
Most visitors were very interested in the plants in the installation: they saw the &ldquo;beauty of the mundane&rdquo; in them and how beautiful the simplest herbs, trees, and flowers can be, which we see around but often do not notice. The unusual oak trees and numerous birds, and a squirrel that sometimes delighted us with its presence were popular excuses to launch a conversation with visitors.
Another visitor&rsquo;s &ldquo;hook&rdquo; became the installation of the sculpture on the site. The reactions varied a lot, from sharply positive to sharply negative. Some people rushed away, saying, &ldquo;Let's get out asap. There is nothing to do here.&rdquo; The most frequent associations include: &ldquo;this is a burnt a person,&rdquo; &ldquo;this work is about careless handling of fire,&rdquo; &ldquo;this is something from anatomy manuals,&rdquo; &ldquo;a man doused with sewage,&rdquo; &ldquo;this is a modern Baba Yaga,&rdquo; &ldquo;this is about what life has made of a man,&rdquo; &ldquo;this is an image of a person sprouting from the ground, their insides are roots,&rdquo; and that the face of the sculpture resembles the famous bust of Voltaire. The work aroused huge interest among teenagers.&nbsp;
I met some interesting people&mdash;former compatriots who have not been to Moscow and Russia for a long time. We had lengthy conversations with them, and, as a rule, they liked pretty much everything and were favorably impressed by Garage, the park, and Moscow in general.&nbsp;
Summing up, I want to share the impression that in the overwhelming majority of cases, visitors left the installation in a much better mood than before they entered it, saying that they had rested, recharged with energy and beauty, and wished to return. Many did return, and even more than once. Some people spent their lunch break resting there, sitting on a log in the sun and recollecting themselves. Some people repeatedly attended meditations, whom we started to recognize.
There were visitors to the installation in almost any weather. I noticed, and visitors confirmed it to me, that perception changes with the weather, but it is always pleasant to stay here regardless of the weather. Visitors noticed (and I showed them) how trees and flowers change; some fade, others, on the contrary, gain strength and beauty.
The popularity of the project is evidenced by the fact that most of the visitors wished that the installation could stay there permanently, that it was not decomposed. Many said how impressed they were to find such a wonderful islet of nature in the center of Moscow.
In my opinion, the project was warm and humane, leaving the most positive impressions on me.

Tina Shirokostup's Diary

Before the project, my understanding of silence was relatively unambiguous. Generally, I never really thought about the meaning of this word. By default, silence was simply the absence of noise for me.
After four months of mediation at Silence, this word simultaneously acquired an abundance of meanings for me&mdash;and lost its original meaning altogether. After talking with many visitors and learning their answers to the question, &ldquo;What is silence for you, for each of you?&rdquo; I got lost in my own reflections upon what silence means for me.
For some, silence is not the absence of sound and tranquility, but on the contrary, a constant monotonous noise, for example, the sounds of a fridge or the noise of the city and a crowd of people merging into the background. The way we perceive the meaning of this word is very individual. While silence can bring peace for some of us, for others, silence is anxiety and tension.
The mediation session that took place on August 26 was one of the most memorable. At that time, there was already a sculpture installed on the site. It was a rainy day, and there were hardly any visitors. At some point, a woman with her little grandson entered the garden. The woman approached the sculpture, and afterward, for the first time in her presence, I did not hear from a visitor that the sculpture looked repulsive and frightening. We started a dialogue, and she said that the fastenings holding the parts of the figure together remind her of syringe marks, while the sculpture itself is the personification of the influence of harmful substances on our body and soul. Despite its sore sight, however, the sculpture's face reflects a smile and serenity, which leads us to the conclusion that under alcohol or drug intoxication, people do not realize the destructiveness of their behavior. They are in the dark&mdash;and this is the state of silence for them, which is actually deceiving.
One of my important observations was the transformation of the space of Silence. I do not mean visible changes, though, but about the very experience of being in the garden. The longer I worked on the project, the more noticeable these changes were. Every person who entered the space, every meditation practice in there&mdash;everything left its emotional and energetic trace, which formed a powerful aura inside the garden toward the end of the project.
For the first few weeks, the sensations from being in the garden were no different from those of a visiting park or a museum, but over time I began to notice that when I entered the space, I was sort of swept over by a wave of completely different energy. I still cannot explain what that feeling was. It did not affect my mood, did not invoke certain emotions. I just felt something alternative, completely different from my everyday state. A large number of meditation practices, during which the participants fully surrender to the process&mdash;let go of old memories and traumas, acquire new impressions, dig into themselves, open up from a new side for themselves&mdash;significantly influenced the energy inside the space.
In the last month of Silence, this difference became so apparent to me that I began to perceive the garden, first of all, as some kind of dome filled with energy, and only secondly as a physical object. Perhaps silence for me is precisely that incomprehensible state that I entered in the installation space, and I am very grateful to the project for the opportunity to reflect on such things.

Dasha Sablina’s Diary

My name is Alisa. I am the coordinator of the project Silence by Paweł Althamer.
This is my second project as a coordinator and my third as a mediator. I was drawn to take part in such a project for two reasons: the desire to improve my coordinator skills, since I really like to systematize and structure everything, and curiosity in terms of what form mediation would take on this project since mediation mutates with every project at Garage and with each project in general. At Silence, mediation took three forms: &ldquo;classical&rdquo; mediation, mediation as an artistic statement, and moderation. To varying degrees, I managed to perform all these roles.
The most interesting part of the project was the integration of Silence into Gorky Park and the clash between park visitors and visitors to the Museum. Even though the program of Garage Square Commissions has existed for years now, in my opinion, Silence is the first participatory project to question pointedly where a contemporary art museum ends and &ldquo;ordinary life&rdquo; begins. Each visitor encountered their own Silence: for some, it was a space for solitude, for others, a meeting place, or yet another exhibition venue to visit, or a place for meditation practices. Each new mediation session animated the place in its own way. I would like to share some of these cases.&nbsp;
These mediations took place in August, with the sculpture&mdash;the portrait of the project's curator Andrey Misiano&mdash;already installed. All three conversations were based around it. Two linguistic students from RUDN University on an exchange program from Africa (South Africa, I think) became interested in the sculpture. For the first time in my mediation practice on this project, the interlocutors immediately defined Silence not as a garden&mdash;but as an exhibition space, a place where an art piece is displayed. On the one hand, once the sculpture became an avid marker of the museum space, the mystery of the place seemed to have disappeared; but, on the other, it became an excuse to start a conversation. My interlocutors compared Silence with a worship site: for them, some sculptural parts resembled a votive figure in the traditions of one of the African peoples. We discussed the similarities between meditation and ancient worship, as well as the conventional view of a visit to a museum.
One day I saw a senior couple discussing something intensely: they were observing the sculpture but hesitated to enter the garden. After my invitation, a conversation began, from which I learned that they are regular Gorky Park visitors and followed the evolution of Silence with much interest from the moment it was installed. They never attended any of the meditations but knew how they pass from watching from outside. The woman shared her memories of how surprised she was when suddenly a whole islet, planted with adult plants, appeared in the park as if it had always been there. The sudden emergence of a garden with mature trees made her doubt her own memories. They began watching how the garden turned from an islet into a forest from that moment on.
One girl walked in and out of Silence several times as if she had lost something or got lost. I started talking to her and found out that she did not recognize the space without the fire bowl. I learned that she studied urbanism and assessed the space from an urbanist's perspective. We discussed how the perception of this space changes when there is a bowl in it and what the sculpture brings to it. Talking about the sculpture, the girl suggested that the portrayed person is trying to get rid of something in the past: he brushes it away, cuts it off with a broom and a scythe.
The reading groups dedicated to Althamer's practice, his visit to Moscow, and insights invoked by discussions with visitors, performers, and moderators, inspired me to discover new angles in the installation. I was delighted to receive positive feedback from visitors to the space. I am glad to have been part of this project and look forward to new incarnations of mediation in the next ones.

Alisa Savina's Diary

It is highly important for me to record what the project gave me as an artist with this diary entry.
Working with groups became incredibly valuable to me. The participants&rsquo; mood and the group members of each session determined the type of practice I would offer them. I improvised, listening carefully to the process.
I started each session with a story about the project. I then asked the visitors questions, which allowed us to get to know each other and become a real group. Sometimes we discussed something as early as this introductory stage. I posed only three questions during my practices:
1) What is your name? 2) How was your day before you came here? Please tell us about your day briefly, or point out something important. 3) What is silence for you?
Everyone got more relaxed. Some would pick up from what the other said about silence. It will be difficult to remember all the answers now, perhaps, as I did not keep a record of them. However, we all agreed that a conversation about silence is, above all, a conversation about inner peace rather than external factors.
For everyone, silence was different. Someone found it in solitude, alone with oneself, for others peacefulness associated with family, despite the noise and hum. I also received many answers about nature, be it the sea, mountains, summer spent in the country, or a picnic in the park.
I developed a meditation with plants in Paweł Althamer&rsquo;s installation and allowed participants to take the plants with them. To make it easier for them, I made an audio recording of it. Even though the recording is not perfect and I still have to work on it, I would be glad if you use this meditation and give me feedback via Facebook or Instagram. My Instagram is @gala_izmaylova.
I recommend listening to the meditation using a speaker or headphones, allowing you to hear the sounds around you, especially if you are outside. Also, prepare the space in advance where you can stand comfortably and move around a little bit. Monitor your condition, and do not be afraid to change position, move or sit down if it gets too difficult for you. Take care of yourself.&nbsp;
<a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c3EOV5606mZYSiW2Vl-UG2BiABAjnNHd/view">Meditation file</a>

Gala Izmailova's diary

Nyu Simakina’s Diary

Coordinator Darya Kuznetsova wrote her diary in the form of a graphic diagram, which, in her opinion, displays the project's main aspects and challenges.

Dasha Kuznetsova’s Diary

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