About this exhibit
Exactly a year ago (in December 2021), we were completely immersed in the preparation of a very bold exhibition project, which was supposed to unite two geographically separated locations (moreover, also in different countries!) in a common exhibition space, to unite a lot of people, as well as ordinary reality with augmented reality. Boxes with artworks, frames and other stuff traveled from Volgograd to St. Petersburg and then to Finland, test launches of virtual angels and elephants were conducted over surprisingly similar buildings in Volgograd and Helsinki, and most of all we were concerned about the speed of launching augmented reality mode with a large number of smartphones simultaneously aimed at the original artwork hanging on the wall…
Then there was an increase in covid restrictions, and then everything lost its relevance altogether – the world shuddered and turned over in a dream.
It was the project based on Stanislav Azarov’s graphic series (or rather, two different graphic series with different numbering systems at once), created by him back in 2020. We spent a long time choosing a name for the project – everything in it was about the world that is separated from ours by only a tiny fraction of the Planck constant and into which Azarov looks when he sleeps. The German Nebenwelt was the most correct, but the German language had nothing to do with our project. As a result, it all became “The closest Neighborhood / Ближайшее соседство”.
The project is no longer destined to take place in the reality of our world, at least in those spaces and forms we found a year ago. But other spaces and forms have emerged. Today we present one of the virtual rooms in which Azarov’s (boldly enlarged) graphic sheets are exhibited, each is accompanied by a retelling and translation of texts that Stanislav places in his works along with spots and images itself.
These artworks have already been presented to the public at the Galleria Avoinna / Center of Contemporary Art Pispala in Tampere and Varjo Galleria in Rovaniemi. But it was all very far away. And the virtual reality – here it is, very close. That’s now our closest Neighborhood…
