Move by Nature: New Exhibition by ITMO and Gazprombank Opens in St. Petersburg

Move by Nature will be held as part of an ecoweek organized by Gazprombank and FC Zenit within Creative Laboratories, a project implemented by the partners with the Gonzo:Research&Art studio. This major initiative is aimed at discovering and developing young artists through their interactions with businesses. 

The exhibition will display works created by the participants of Creative Laboratories under the supervision of experts from ITMO, Stain studio, and Gonzo:Research&Art. 

Among the experts are Elena Bykovskaya, a senior lecturer at ITMO’s Faculty of Ecotechnologies, and Sergey Titov and Alexandra Gavrilova, guest lecturers of ITMO’s Master’s program Art & Science, digital media artists, and founders of Stain studio. The exhibition is curated by Asya Kaplan, the curator of educational programs at the Art & Science Center; Alexander Feskov, the technical director of the center, became the technical director of the exhibition, as well.

Each of the exhibits is an invitation to ponder the connections between ecology and games in a world permeated with digital technologies. For the artists, humans are just one link in the chain of complex interspecies connections. The air and the soil, seas and plants, people and animals – everything in an ecosystem is involved in a fragile game at the edge of order and chaos. And the outcome of this game determines our common future. In their projects, the artists see play as a means of ecological coexistence of nature and humans.

Also among the exhibits are works by ITMO students. Kamila Gizitdinova (Faculty of Technological Management and Innovations) and Ekaterina Ishutina (Faculty of Ecotechnologies) submitted the project Alternative Power Source, which looks into how the emotions of football fans during a match affect the environment. This project considers the inner energy of people as a motivation behind positive changes in their environment.

Yana Sorokina, a student of the Institute of International Development and Partnership, in her project Sensitivity as New Ecology reveals the meaning of sensitivity through a trinket box containing one of the balls significant for FC Zenit. This installation is meant to transport visitors to their childhood. 

“One of the objectives of contemporary art forms, including science art, is to draw the public’s attention to the challenges it’s about to face. In their works, the artists don’t juxtapose game and reality – instead, they demonstrate the interconnections of the two. By introducing a game into the everyday, we can rethink our perspective on consumption and view personal contributions as part of the collective experience (project Playing Life). The projects also look at maintaining your distance in a game, suggesting to opt for coexistence instead of interfusion (project Closed Ecosystem), and visualize a future where the humanity’s claim to leadership turns the game into hollow automation (project Enchantedness),” says Elizaveta Menis, the head of the Art & Science Center. 

A lecture program created in collaboration with the Art & Science Center will be held alongside the exhibition. Visitors will be introduced to the fundamentals of ecology, conscious consumption, speculative design, and eco art, as well as learn how architecture is linked to natural algorithms. The lectures will be held in Russian and will be free to attend with prior registration (Architecture and Biology, Ecology and Art, lectures for school students). 

The exhibition Move by Nature with the accompanying educational program will be held on September 23-26 at ITMO’s AIR space (Birzhevaya Liniya 16). The event is free to attend but visitors are required to sign up in advance. 

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