All lectures are free for ARTEL Lab participants. Anyone wishing to attend a lecture can buy a ticket online or at the museum box office.
Module I. Tradition as a Heritage. Experience of Preservation and Development
/ September 26 at 18:00. Lecture by Natalia Denisova "Museum as a Creative Laboratory. From the Moscow Arts and Crafts Museum to the All-Russian Decorative Art Museum"
Why does a modern craftsman, artist, designer need a museum? Who was the first to see the handicrafts of folk craftsmen as works of art? How did the first collections of samples of traditional crafts influence the development of the national style in Russian artistic culture? How were the plastic arts and decor of folk art objects translated into the author's projects of the Abramtsevo circle activists Viktor Vasnetsov, Elena Polenova and Sergei Malyutin?
At the lecture you will learn about the role of the Museum of Samples of the Moscow Arts and Crafts Museum in the development of traditional art production at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries; of its history in the 20th-21st centuries - from the Museum of Folk Art as part of the Research Institute of Art Industry to the All-Russian Decorative Art Museum. Its collection serving as a "museum of samples" of the evolving national style for contemporary artists and designers.
The lecture will be accompanied by a tour of the permanent exhibition of the museum.
Lecturer: Natalia Denisova, art historian, curator, chief methodologist of the department of scientific, methodological and educational activities. Author of exhibition and educational projects of the All-Russian Museum of Decorative Arts "Point of Support. New Folk", "Children of the Avant-garde", programs for adult and children's audiences - "Museum Workshops", "Children's Carpentry Studio", "Children's Design Laboratory".
Format: offline / online
/ September 28 at 13:00. Lecture by Natalia Vedernikova "Research Institute of Art Industry” (NIIKhP): history, areas of work, methods, achievements"
Why in 1932 the Soviet government decided to create a special Institute of art industry, what events preceded this decision, what goals and objectives were set for the Institute and why it became an effective tool in the implementation of a large-scale state program to turn the traditional crafts into a successful branch of the art industry.
Participants of the lecture will learn about the research and art practices of the Institute, its forms of work with traditional crafts, its methods of studying the traditions, of their application and rethinking for the creation of new artistic models and guiding crafts’ collections. They will learn about the Method of the Research Institute of Art Industry and what it means.
Module II. The nature of folk in the context of culture
/ October 8. Lecture by Vladimir Koshaev "Ontology of folk art"
The task of philosophy is to translate ideas about things "from the sphere of everyday life to being" (Martin Heidegger), and this is relevant for art in general, specifically for understanding the place and role of folk art in culture as a whole. A contemporary researcher sees folk art as a palimpsest with many different time "layers". Folk art is seen:
- as an Image of the world, reflected in the figurative and ornamental nature of the decorative and applied art of different peoples of Russia - from the Mesolithic era to the Middle Ages;
- as a folklore form that replaced archaic generic concepts, gradually aquirong a plot, genre theme, along with the preservation of the previous figurative system;
- as a sphere of scientific knowledge, commercial and industrial aesthetics, cultural strategy of the state and society in the 18th-early 20th centuries;
- as a type of cultural and artistic integrity within the framework of the scientific paradigm of folk art studies that developed in Soviet times;
- as a living reality, a form of artistic and historical memory, national identity.
Lecturer: Vladimir Koshaev, Doctor of Art History, Professor of the Department of Semiotics and General Theory of Art, Faculty of Arts, Lomonosov Moscow State University
Format: Lecture recording (will be provided to all participants)
/ October 12 at 13:00. Lecture by Lyudmila Fedotova "Experience of the NIIKhP Modeling Laboratory: Traditional in Modern Costume"
The fabric laboratory and the modeling sector of the Research Institute of Art Industry (NIIKhP) had two directions: creating samples that replicate their ethnic prototypes (souvenir and gift items) and developing models and collections of clothing that met modern fashion demands. The task of fashion designers was difficult: it was necessary to have professional knowledge of the features of folk costume, local artistic canons and trends in modern fashion.
How modern clothing with elements of folk art was developed, about working with lace and stitching enterprises, creating unique products and mass-produced collections - all this will be told at the lecture with a demonstration of photographs and visual materials (sketches) from the NIIKhP archive.
Lecturer: Lyudmila Fedotova, art historian, in the 1970s – 1990s – research fellow at the Department of Theory, History and Contemporary Problems of Folk Art and Crafts at the Research Institute of Art Industry, specializing in artistic design of fabrics
Format: offline / online
/October 12 at 16:00. Meeting with artist Ustina Yakovleva "Embroidery as a reflection of memory"
"Folk art is a monolith, it is impossible to reform, but it is possible, using ancient technologies, to create your own forms - images of modern art."
A graduate of the art and graphic department of the Moscow Pedagogical University and the Institute of Contemporary Art, artist Ustina Yakovleva explores the culture of the North, in her graphic works and embroideries she turns to the re-actualization of folk art practices. Her latest searches are closely linked to the Komi Republic, for here are her roots – her great-grandmother, grandmother and mother. Working with fabric and embroidery is a family history.
At the meeting, Ustina will talk about her journey to the land of her ancestors, family legends and traditions, and also, using her works as an example, will show how to combine the problems of modern art with the oldest techniques of decorative and applied art.
Format: offline / online
/October 27, Lecture by Dmitry Baranov “Folk ornament: ethnographic analyses of visual images”.
The lecture will talk about ways of semantic interpretation of visual images on the examples of folk culture, it will touch upon the methods of interpretation of images as products of mythological mind. The “reading” of the images makes us turn to some specific sources like: mythopoetic concepts, folklore, rituals and world of objects. It’s hard to say exactly which context had laid the foundation for the visual images, for their meanings become separate only on the viewer’s mind, while in the space of folk culture they are one whole.
How to work with this unity and harmony of folk art, how to interpret images without distorting the meanings - these are the questions the lecture will be devoted to.
Lecturer: Dmitry Baranov, PhD Historical Sciences, Head of the Department of Ethnography of the Russian People of the Russian Ethnographic Museum
Format: offline / online
Lectures by Raliya Musina.
Raliya Rifgatovna Musina worked as an employee and, subsequently, as the head of the ceramics laboratory of the Research Institute of Art Industry for more than 10 years, and recalls these years as invaluable professional experience, thanks to which she was able to understand the specifics and depth of folk art. Today, Raliya Rifgatovna continues to provide consulting support to enterprises of the art industry.
The lectures will talk about the scientific school of the Research Institute of Art Industry, of its research and practical work with folk art.
/ October 19 at 13:00. "Traditions of folk art as a living process. Collective and authorial"
The lecture is devoted to the specifics of folk art as a collective creative heritage, where the authorial always manifests itself within the stable artistic canon. At the meeting Raliya Rifgatovna Musina will talk about the harmonious combination of complementary layers of folk art - traditional and innovative in all genre, about style and functional elements. She will speak on how we can interact with the heritage of folk art within the system of modern culture on terms of stable values and new needs of society, combining the experience of the past and modern forms.
/ October 19 at 15:00. "Laws of Folk Art: the Object World and Its Meanings"
The lecture will focus on the structural elements of the artistic language of folk art: the laws of form-building, the balance of "beauty and utility" - the decor and functionality of the product, as well as composition, color, the leading role of natural material and the features of the formation of the "style" of a particular folk craft within a local tradition. The lecture participants will get acquainted with the basics of the methodology developed in the creative laboratories of the Research Institute of Art Industry, which allows, based on knowledge of the laws of folk art, to integrate artistic folk language into the modern culture of everyday life, adapt it to current object forms.
Lecturer: Raliya Rifgatovna Musina, Doctor of Art History, Doctor of Art History, Professor of the Russian State University of Art and Crafts named after S.G. Stroganov, member of the Federal Expert Council on Folk Art.
Format: offline / online
/ October 24 at 19:00. Lecture by Ivan Mitin "Crafts as a Palimpsest: Uniqueness of Place and Creative Industries"
The lecture, based on theories of interaction between man and space, offers an original view of folk crafts through the prism of place. Traditional images of folk art are usually closely associated with place (for example, Gzhel), expressing the unique local features. At the same time, it is the place that can serve as the "key" to the construction of new products of creative industries, which will act as a new interpretation and representation of already established and popular local meanings.
Based on the author's model of place as a palimpsest, the lecture will talk about the theory of cultural landscape. In practical terms, it will be shown how studying and understanding local specifics, unique features of cities and regions allows us to construct new territorial brands by means of culture, fill creative industries with unique local images and combine traditions and innovations in the creative economy, relying on local and regional features.
Lecturer: Ivan Mitin, PhD in Geographical Sciences, Associate Professor of the A.A. Vysokovsky Higher School of Urban Studies, Faculty of Urban and Regional Development, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Manager of the Vdokhnovenie Cultural Center
Format: offline / online
/October 26 at 13:00. Lecture by Anna Teplova "Folk as a synthesis of arts. Image, language, movement"
Traditional folk art is deeply connected with the place of its birth, nature, landscape, architecture, spiritual history. We will consider the special nature of folk art, manifested in the unity of material forms of culture and intangible heritage. Using the example of Russian costume, we will see its connection with the plasticity of folk dance. We will get acquainted with oral traditions, with how language and its dialects were reflected in craft practices. Acting and music-making, song traditions, holidays and customs, mythology and epic poetry - knowledge of all forms of communication in traditional culture can give a modern artist an understanding of folk art as a whole - an organic system, where the object acts as a visible embodiment of a person's ideas about the world and his place in it, about the ideal, harmonious relationships within the community.
The lecture will include a performance by students of the Department of Folk Art Culture of the Ilya Glazunov Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where the living connection between musical folklore and craft traditions will be demonstrated.
Lecturer: Anna Teplova, PhD in Pedagogical Sciences, folklorist, head of the Department of Folk Art Culture of the Faculty of Art History of the Ilya Glazunov Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture
Format: offline / online
/ October 27 at 13:00. Lecture by Anna Butina "Connection of Times. How to Convey Experience and Mastery in Decorative Arts"
Format: offline / online
/ October 31 at 19:00. Meeting with artist Ulyana Podkorytova "Contemporary Art in Search of New Folklore"
A graduate of the Printing Institute and Rodchenko School, Ulyana Podkorytova works as a graphic artist and performance artist, creates multimedia projects, shoots videos, sings and does ceramics.
The artist will talk about her experience of working "in the field" - in a Russian village, about her own theory of "kosism" (kosa=braid) and the characters of the author's mythology - the super-heroine Gertrude Svirepa. She will talk of her native Abramtsevo village - the birthplace of the neo-Russian style, as well as how modern authors work with the heritage of folk culture in Russia and the world. The lecture participants will also discuss how research in the field of folklore and anthropology helps the artist to talk about modernity and actualize traditional folk images and meanings.
Format: offline / online
/ November 14 at 19:00. Lecture by Varvara Zenina "Local Identity and Design"
What is a cultural code and how one is to work with it? How to put local images and meanings into the basis of a design project? Stylization, interpretation, rethinking - what's the difference? How should ethno-designers conduct research, what sources to turn to, what criteria to apply in selecting sources, prototypes, samples - all this in a lecture by designer, ethnoculturalist Varvara Zenina.
Lecturer: Varvara Zenina, designer, ethnoculturalist and creator of her own clothing brand VARVARA ZENINA.
Format: offline / online
