Viktor Kolchin’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 “language” 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’ 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 (“Why do we need mediators if everything is clear anyway?”). But if a moderator starts speaking at the right moment, then, even if it doesn’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—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.