Автор проекта: Зинаида Михайловна Кравчук
Зинаида Михайловна родилась и выросла в Вологодской области. В юности Зинаида интересовалась классическим искусством и мечтала посвятить свою жизнь искусствоведческим наукам. Однако жизнь распорядилась по-своему и Зинаида проработала большую часть своей жизни в качестве помощника сельского старосты. Но несмотря на обстоятельства ее тяга к творческой деятельности только возросла и после выхода на пенсию Зинаида Михайловна с завидным упорством начала изучать современный арт-мир. Любимый художник Зинаиды на сегодняшний день - это Энди Уорхол. По ее словам, творчество Уорхола вносит в жизнь Зинаиды яркие краски и улучшает самочувствие. Зинаида Михайловна утверждает, что искусство должно быть близко зрителю, а его задачей является побуждение зрителя к переосмыслению жизни вокруг нас.

Artist: Natalia Dove
Biography: As ornithologist Natalia studies bird songs, flight patterns, physical appearance, and migration patterns of birds. She combines her core activity and creative work. The sculpture The Dove of Peace was created as the implementation Natalia's love to the pigeons.

The Dove of Peace. The symbol of mental equilibrium and peace of mind, which the person of 21th century extremely lack. Nowadays people are constantly situated in the process of fighting whether the external circumstances or themselves. The exhibit appeals a beholder to reflect, analyze intrinsic values and internal cues.

The artwork represents the project "Symbols of Time".

Material: Gesso

Year: 2016

Artist: Daria Kuhn
Biography: Daria Kuhn was born in Desyatnikovo village. Since her childhood she has learned to farm by helping her family with hens and cows. After school graduation Daria decided to pursue art, however, her past still has a significant impact on her art works.

The Chicken and Eggs. So what came first, the chicken or the egg? The exhibit makes viewers think about eternal questions, which were pressing whether thousand years ago or in the 21th century. What are our primary values and is it really possible that the fuss of everyday life will obscure our comprehension of them? The final question remains in abeyance.

The art object represents the project "Lost Values".

Material: Egg shells

Year: 2016

Artist: Julia Storm
Biography: The artist was born in Saint Petersburg. At the age of 19 she started to be interested in design and contemporary philosophy. Currently she works under the project "The mental world of the aluminium".

The Pipe. The object represents a need of the information filtering, its extensive review and significance of absorbing junk information.

The artwork represents the project "The mental world of the Aluminium".

Material: Aluminium alloy

Year: 2014

Artist: Ivan Electrician
Biography: As the third-generation electrician, Ivan has always been iinspired by light, lamps and engineering suppport. This influenced his further artistic activity. In his art works Ivan tries to represent the significance of technology in everyday life.

The Electric Service Panel with Stairs. The exhibit symbolizes a portal to another world, in which a modern person runs primarily from own problems and internal conflicts. The exhibit appeals to reconsider the seeming necessity of escape and its illusory benefits.

The work of art represents the series "Dimensions".

Material: Polymer matrix composite, iron

Year: 2010

Artist: Anna Borisovna
Biography: A music teacher in the past, Anna Borisovna has a dream to encourage people of nowadays to restart real-life social communication. Her art works are devoted to the problems of social isolation and solitude.

Lets Sing Together! The sculpture is an implementation of the appeal to have a real-life social life. As an example of this it could be a collaborative creative activity.

Material: Stone
Year: 2016

Artist: Vasiliy Dubov
Biography: Environmental expert by profession, Vasiliy devoted his life to studying environmental issues of nowadays. Most of his time Vasiliy spends in forests or in the fields. His artistic activity is a result of the impulse to encourage people to stop the violence against nature.

The Stump. The symbol of an imaginary human superiority, elimination of the potentiality of being through human activity. It contemplates interactive participation of the beholder. The viewer is offered to give a new lease of life to the object, which was serving people not only while alive but also postmortem. The participants can place on the stump those items, which in their view represent their involvement and maybe empathy. This process symbolizes social involvement as well as aestheticization of the dead space.

The art object belongs to the series "Lost Values"

Instructions: Use the object as a foundation for your own piece of art. Put on the Stump everything what would represent your attitude to this art object.

Material: Wood

Year: 2015

Elena Moon was born in Volgograd, Russia. After graduating from local humanitarian gymnasium, she moved in Moscow where she studied linguistics and strategies of international communication at Moscow Pedagogical State University. Due to her wanderlust, in 2013 she spent 4 months in the USA where she was working and traveling across the country, learning cultural particularities of the Americans as well as investigating the American art market. In September 2013 she helped to organize an exhibition of a young artist in Chicago. Also she had a possibility to visit the Chicago Art Fair, famous galleries in New York and Los Angeles.

In the same year she became one of initiators of organization of a charity concert. She was responsible for selection of artworks which were represented at the auction for fundraising for medical care of indigent children.

In the year 2014-2015 she moved to Germany where she spent 6 months studying at the Bielefeld University. During this time she was working on her diploma paper, which was dedicated to the phenomenon of migration in Germany and problems of cultural integration. In Dusseldorf, Hamburg and Berlin she was visiting major galleries and learning the particularities of German art scene.

After return in Moscow in 2015 she successfully graduated from Moscow Pedagogical State University and dedicated one year to in-depth study of cultural life in the Russian capital. Currently she is studying curatorial research at Saint Petersburg State University.

Higher education

Moscow State Pedagogical University, Moscow, Russia
Intercultural communication
Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
Literary Studies
Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Curatorial Studies

Work experience
Since Oktober 2016
FotoDepartament
Arts manager trainee

May 2016
Winzavod
Volunteer in organization of Museum Night

September 2015 – June 2016
Liberty Marketing Buro
Marketing manager

September 2013
Fountain Chicago Art Fair
Art exhibition assistant

Elena Moon, Interview: "We are living under dictatorship of the informational technologies"



Elena Moon – one of the 12 curators who will participate this year in the renowned "Virtual Biennale" – presents her first exhibition, title "Back to Basics", which promises to pull people from their virtual lives down to earth, where they can live in the real world for a little while.

Much has been said about technology, especially about the advantages and benefits that it brings to our lives. But nowadays discussions are focusing on the influence of technology. Elena thinks it is very important to limit the use of technology because it is moving us away from our reality. So, it's time to live on the earth with our feet on the ground.

"In the world of information overload we often forget who we are, where we go, our values and our goal of existence", says the young Russian curator of contemporary art.

Curated by Elena Moon, "Back to Basics" brings together five contemporary artists - Natalia Dove, Daria Kuhn, Julia Storm, Ivan Electric, LLM – exploring almost every aspect of life and technology.

Alexis Mejia: What led you to take technology as the main idea of your exhibition? Were there experiences in your personal life that may have affected your choice?

Elena Moon: First of all, I can't say that technology is the main subject of this project. However, technology is a real power, which is able to modify our perception of reality. Social nets, platforms, different media create a sensation that we live in another reality, which is very similar to physical circumstances but still it is only virtual world. This misconception leads to rejection of physical reality, we often exist in some virtual conditions ignoring the ideas of initial creation. I can't tell about my special experience connecting to this, however, in my daily life I started to notice that my best friends became a notebook and a mobile phone. This made me think that it is necessary to find some strategies to avoid complete immersion in delusive space. That's why I decided to dedicate my exhibition to this issue.



AM: What is the aim of this exhibition?

EM: The aim of this exhibition is a reflection of the current situation in contemporary society. The phenomena of the hyper reality, which described Jean Baudrillard in "Simulacra and Simulation", became a usual condition of nowadays. Simultaneous existence fully replace now the initial physical reality and this leads to deprivation of core values. The main goal of this exposition is showing important aspects of life, primary values, which are so familiar to everybody, however, they are often ignored or forgotten in the fuss of daily life and simultaneous existence. I hope that this exhibition will inspire those who visit it.





AM: How did you choose the artists and their works? Did you consider their relationship with technology in making your selections?

EM: All artists, which took part in this project were interested in the theme of delusive values. That was the main reason to invite them and ask to create or bring the artwork, which depicts their own attitude to modernity and its specificity. Technology is a very strong power that is able to modify our life presentation. Of course artists, which were invited to this project, are familiar with effects of the hyperreality and they definitely use social nets, various media and so on... So they are normal modern people, which don't avoid the fruits of technological progress, however, they came to the idea of the necessity of the opposition to total dissolution in the virtual world. For instance, Julia Storm proposes to rethink the process of filtration of the information, which we constantly consume.



AM: In your exhibit, there are several works by various artists. Though each has a unique style, their work must have had common elements that led you to select them to illustrate your concept. Can you describe their commonality? Put another way, how would you describe the relationship of one artist to another, of one work to another?

EM: All pieces of art have the same target, to remind a beholder of some significant strategies that could promote to exist in Today's world in a more deliberate way.



AM: Knowing the relationship that Russian society has with contemporary art, what do you expect visitors to feel? Do you think your exhibition is going to be different and impress them?

EM: The aim of this project is not to shock an accustomed to the specificity of contemporary art visitor but to start a quiet dialogue about things that everybody is concerned. I strongly believe that a Russian viewer would be pleased to have such form of the art investigation. I can't predict the reaction of every beholder, however, I hope that each person will pick up some idea while exploring this exposition. It could be the best evidence for me that our efforts were fruitful.



AM: Using your words, do you think this exhibition will bring people down to the earth and make them run away for a while from the virtual world? I mean, Do you really believe that your exhibition will change anyone's point of view about technology?

EM: As I already mentioned, this exhibition is dedicated to reflection of values, which we are forgetting because of the circumstances, which often get control over our perception of the physical reality. I don't have a target to change somebody's opinion regarding the phenomena of hyperreality, my aim is to organize a special art-meditation where a viewer can relax and think over issues of nowadays. Moreover, the art pieces at this exposition put more questions than answers. However, I am pretty sure that the process of thinking is already a great result. This is what I would like to see.