The Art Formula
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Sketching contests and the making of art objects
Cities have been hosting sketch contests open to all residents. The contests’ winners are chosen by open vote on social media. Professional artists would then work to transfer the best pieces of artwork to the facades of residential and public buildings.
As part of the program in 2020, artists decorated the facades of four residential buildings in Tobolsk and Blagoveshchensk (Republic of Bashkortostan). All artwork was created under the motto of Discover Your City. For example, in Tobolsk, they created a portrait of Semyon Remezov, a famous cartographer, architect and builder of the past, while another building was decorated with a picture of a man and a woman flying over the city in hot-air balloons.
2021 saw each city concentrate on its own theme of drawings entitled, respectively: "The Heritage Code” in Blagoveshchensk, "Legends and Tales of Siberia" in Tobolsk, and "The Nature of Art" in Svobodny. Each of the cities had two of their buildings decorated with vibrant murals. The ones in Tobolsk, for example, featured an image of children, dressed in traditional costumes of the peoples of the North, reading a fairy tale in a wintry forest, and a fairy-tale whale, a re-imagined interpretation of the character from Pyotr Yershov's piece "The Little Humpbacked Horse". Spread across the whale’s back is a modern-day Tobolsk. This was the artists’ way of stressing the close-knit connection between the city's everyday life and popular fairytales that have become a part of its cultural code.In 2022, as many as five façades of buildings local to Tobolsk, Perm, Svobodny, and Kstovo were decked out with murals. One of the murals in Tobolsk, inspired by the design of a glazed wall tile discovered on the grounds of the Governor's Palace Museum in the early 2000s, was produced as a part of the city's urban development program known as "The True Tobolsk".
The 2023 sketch contest had 4 winners. Tobolsk saw 2 of its facades decorated at 32, Microdistrict 7A, and at 10, 4th Severnaya St. Ms. Varvara Groshkova, the author of a sketch representing the "Flora and Fauna of Our Homeland" theme, portrayed a young beautiful woman holding a sapling symbolizing the beginning and birth of something new, as well as the daybreak seen in the birch grove in the girl’s background. .
Maxim Zinovyev became the winner of a sketch contest in Perm that was dedicated to the topic of "Ecology of the Future and the EcoCode". Thanks to the artist's efforts, there is now a new mural at 12 Baumana Street.
Svobodny's Anna Furman turned the facade of the building at 2/1 Repina St. into an art object depicting a little girl held in her mother's arms as a symbol of family values, traditions, and comforts of a home.
The themes of the contest held in Nizhnekamsk included "City Colors" and "The Nature's Pristine Sites". A new mural titled "Dawn over the Korabelnaya Grove", created by Ildus Murtazin, the Republic of Tatarstan's Honored Figure of Art, now adorns a residential building at 34, Vokzalnaya Street.
Educational program
In 2018-2019, the project featured lectures by urbanists, and master classes offered by professional artists. The experts discussed with their audiences how a cultural scene in a city is evolving, and how local residents can contribute to improving their cities’ landmark public spaces. At the master classes conducted by experienced artists, everyone could learn how to spray-paint and to create art objects of their own.
In 2020, because of the pandemic, the educational program had to be carried out in an online mode. Residents of Tobolsk and Blagoveshchensk were able to take part in a master class on graffiti art and calligraphy. The class included a presentation on contemporary art, hands-on exercises, and various interactive elements. By the end of 2020, the recording of the master class had had more than 21,000 views.
2021 saw Svobodny host a graffiti master class and a discussion about street art that were held online and attracted more than 10,000 views and over 100 active participants who created their works of art live under the guidance of professional artists. The event in Blagoveshensk saw city residents design T-shirts and shopping bags and try their hand at being street artists. For the first time, Tobolsk hosted the festival of contemporary art "The Landmark Place" that brought together 400 residents of Tobolsk. The festival included a number of creative workshops - painting on skateboards, T-shirts and shopping bags, master classes in calligraphy, graffiti and portrait painting, a lecture by a music scholar Anna Velenskaya, an art quest, and an exhibition of contemporary art.More than 200 people participated in street art master classes held in Tobolsk, Svobodny, Kstovo, and Perm in 2022. Working side by side with professional artists, the attendees of the master classes daubed graffiti on several of their cities’ real estate properties.
In 2023, creative master classes were held in Svobodny, Tobolsk, Perm, and Nizhnekamsk. A total of 460 people took part in master classes on making bespoke clothing, producing sticker packs, and on painting on shopping bags.