HSE University School of Art and Design in St. Petersburg and ‘Manege’ Open a Joint Exhibition
On August 14, the ‘Thirty Three Characters’ project, which was created by the HSE University School of Art and Design in St. Petersburg in partnerships with the ARKI Creative Workshop, will open at the Manege Central Exhibition Hall in St. Petersburg. The project combines a series of outdoor installations dedicated to the Cyrillic alphabet.
The exhibition reveals the relationship between traditional Russian culture, contemporary art, modern font design, and typography with the unique urban space of St. Petersburg. A large team of experts from HSE School of Art and Design in St. Petersburg worked on the exhibition. The project is led by the Division Head Dmitry Kharshak, while Andrey Punin worked as main designer. The following lecturers of the School of Art and Design are among the project’s authors: Andrey Lublinsky, Vitaly Pushnitsky, Boremir Bakharev and Yuri Shtapakov, as well as Ekaterina Filipenko and Andrey Voronov, who will join the School's team in September 2020. Anastasia Petyakhina, third-year student of the Design programme, also developed of the project's identity design.
The new exhibition builds on ‘Thirty Three Sounds’ project, which was held at Manege in September 2019. The success of last year's exhibition encouraged the creators to continue with the ‘magic’ number 33 in a new form and tell audiences about the basic element of Russian culture—Cyrillic script.
‘The ‘Thirty Three Characters’ exhibition is our declaration of love to the Cyrillic alphabet. I love it for the uniqueness of our vertical ‘fence’ of П, Ц, Ш, Щ, for ‘buzzing beetle’ Ж, for ‘hands-in-hips-walking’ Ф, for unpronounceable Ь and Ъ, for Ы unknowable for a foreign eye, and for the closing bold triple Э, Ю, Я!’ says Dmitry Kharshak, Project Curator and Head of the Division of Design and Contemporary Art.
The exhibition ‘Thirty Three Characters’ includes several parts. The installation ‘Cyrillic Labyrinth’, created by designer Yuri Gordon and Andrey Punin, Architect and Lecturer at the HSE University School of Art and Design in St. Petersburg, will be as the exhibition centre. The lowercase ‘A’ shaped labyrinth will be placed on the square near the Western facade of the Manege Central Exhibition Centre. Walking through it and interacting with elements of augmented reality, viewers will be able to trace the development of the Cyrillic font and learn about the milestones in the alphabet’s formation.
In addition, a series of large-scale installations ‘АБВГД — Авторские Буквы В ГороДе’ (ABVGD-Author's Letters in the City) will be located in the centre of St. Petersburg: on the University embankment, in the Peter and Paul Fortress, Sevkabel port and other locations. Contemporary Russian artists and font designers, including Pokras Lampas, Alexander Shishkin-Hokusai and Andrey Lublinsky, have created 15 installations using the form of Cyrillic letters. There are the letters that have already fallen out of use in modern Russian. Specially for this project, artist and calligrapher Viktor Pushkarev will create a series of typographic videos dedicated to each letter of the Russian alphabet. A documentary about the project, directed by Konstantin Furasyev, will also be presented in September.
As part of the project, the Manege Exhibition Centre will present an additional educational programme with creative meetings and lectures by participants and other design experts. The programme will be launched in September. The project’s team is also working on creating a mobile app, which will feature a combination of gaming and educational elements revealing the unfamiliar aspects of Cyrillic script. Furthermore, the virtual platform will show the history of the Cyrillic alphabet and most significant events that have influenced our writing system.
Dmitry Kharshak
The Thirty-Three Characters project combines several areas. First, there is certainly visual art. ‘Fifteen outstanding artists are creating letters/installations, which will be placed on the streets of St. Petersburg. Secondly, it is the font design. Through lectures and master classes of modern designers, we will talk about the modern Cyrillic alphabet and, perhaps, try to look into its future. And thirdly, this is a research project. Artist and designer Yuri Gordon creates a large-scale installation ‘Cyrillic Labyrinth’, which will be located on the square near the Western facade of the Manege Central Exhibition Centre. The labyrinth will enable the exhibition guests to travel through 12 centuries of Russia’s history of writing.’
The exhibition is being implemented as part of the ‘Museum line’ programme, conceived by the Manege team for the purpose of creating open cultural spaces and developing a more comfortable urban environment.
‘The Museum Line’ project is aimed at strengthening the image of St. Petersburg as a dynamically developing cultural capital of Europe, open to modern art, new figurative forms and artistic solutions,’ says Anna Yalova, Project Head, Manege Deputy Director for Development, adding: ‘The project is particularly relevant this year. The consequences of the current pandemic impose certain restrictions on visiting museums and exhibitions, so supporting art in an open space art be an important solution in the development of the urban cultural environment.’
The exhibition will be open in St. Petersburg until October 14. After that, it will be exhibited in other Russian cities, primarily in Moscow.
See also:
ADCR Awards: HSE University Wins in Ten Nominations
In early October, the award ceremony for the winners of ADCR Awards, a Russian professional competition in creativity, design and advertising, took place. This year, all the prizes in the Graphic Design/Product Design category were taken by HSE students. Additionally, the HSE Art and Design School has once again been named the School of the Year, and Leonid Slavin has been recognised as the tutor of the year. In 2024, participants submitted a record 649 works to the competition, of which 84 received awards in various categories.
GRADUATION'24: HSE Art and Design School at the Zaryadye Exhibition
On October 11, 2024, the third exhibition GRADUATION'24 opened at the Parking Gallery of Zaryadye Park. More than 200 promising artists from 22 Moscow institutions are participating in the event. The exhibition features various works from modern painting to computer games created by graduates of different tracks of HSE Art and Design School.
‘Intriguing Collaboration’: HSE Student Works Displayed at Yandex Museum
Last year, HSE University and the team at Yandex Museum launched their first joint competition, ‘New Life of Familiar Things,’ involving students from various fields at the HSE Art and Design School. The winners' works are now displayed at the Yandex Museum. The HSE News Service interviewed the winners about their innovative design and implementation.
HSE Art and Design School’s End-of-Year Exhibition Takes Place at Winzavod and MMOMA
In mid-July 2024, the HSE Art and Design School celebrated the results of the 2023/24 academic year at two venues in Moscow. The exhibition entitled ‘Collection: The Order of Things’ opened at HSE ART GALLERY at Winzavod and the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA) on Gogolevsky Boulevard. Over 150 artists whose projects were selected through an internal competition participated in this year's event.
‘New Life of Familiar Things’: Exhibition of Student Projects at Yandex Museum
On July 3, 2024, the Yandex Museum on Paveletskaya in collaboration with the HSE Art and Design School opened an exhibition showcasing familiar objects that have been given new forms, functions, and meanings. The exhibition features the projects of finalists from a competition organised by the HSE Art and Design School and the Yandex Museum. Visitors can explore works created by young designers and talented students of the HSE Art and Design School, who have reimagined familiar objects in the context ofmodern life.
'Potsherds and Spindles. Joy and Burden': New Exhibition at HSE ART GALLERY
A series of paired solo exhibitions has been launched at the HSE ART GALLERY on Pionerskaya: projects by teachers and students of the HSE Art and Design School are now exhibited at one venue. The first project in this series is by Vladislav Efimov, a teacher, and Alexandra Zamuruyeva, a student of the ‘Design and Contemporary Art’ programme.
Season Eight of HSE CREATIVE OPEN Competition Begins
HSE CREATIVE OPEN international online competition of the HSE Art and Design School opens the summer season featuring new categories: ‘Visual Research,’ ‘Game Design,’ ‘Motion Design,’ ‘Poster,’ and ‘Digital Product.’
‘Everything Evermore All at Once’: New Exhibition at HSE ART GALLERY
HSE ART GALLERY, which was established in 2018, has launched a new exhibition area. The first project in the new space opened on May 28, 2024. The exhibition represents works by more than 50 HSE Art and Design School students and graduates in Contemporary Art, Fashion, and Subject Design.
HSE ART GALLERY 2.0: Relaunch and New Space at the Winzavod
HSE ART GALLERY, which was established in 2018, is launching a new exhibition area. This second gallery will be in Winzavod, one of the largest private centres for contemporary art in Russia. The art space on Paveletskaya will become a place for implementing commercial projects and housing exhibitions by HSE Art and Design students and graduates.
HSE University and Pobeda Airlines Launch Joint Competition
HSE Art and Design School, in collaboration with the Pobeda Airlines, has announced the start of a competition to create a new uniform design for flight attendants and representatives of the airline. Young professional designers, as well as students over 18 years old studying at Russian universities in full-time and part-time programmes in the field of ‘Design and Fashion,’ will have the opportunity to showcase their talent.