Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art presents So Far, So Near, a large-scale exhibition project bringing together artists from different parts of Russia to demonstrate how personal backgrounds and local traditions shape richly varied perceptions of contemporary art
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A visual journey across the country’s great expanse
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An active community in which artists share their stories and art connects people and cities
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Harmony of different creative voices triggering emotional reactions and leading to surprising discoveries
A new instalment of the Regiony (Provinces) project, So Far, So Near is yet another large-scale exhibition bringing together paintings and applied art by talents from all across Russia: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Samara, Yekaterinburg, Ufa, Nizhny Tagil, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Saratov, Sevastopol, Cheboksary, Perm, Irkutsk, Kirov, Tyumen, Voronezh, Dubna, Krasnodar, Kazan, and Gatchina.
Provinces justly calls itself a grassroots project: every participating artist has contributed several artworks to represent the local art scene of his or her hometown. Akin to a large cultural festival, the exhibition space plays host to new encounters and exciting discoveries where viewers with varied art appreciation backgrounds come across new creative worlds. Perhaps someone will even be inspired to visit the regional ‘places of artistic power’ in search of more artworks by the show’s participants. However, even if the viewers do not ultimately travel anywhere, the artworks will certainly trigger an emotional response, bringing nearer the places that are geographically far.
According to the project’s curator Ekaterina Samitina, ‘Through pictures and crafts, people from various towns and cities share the happy tales of their native land, and this exchange proves valuable for the whole country. So Far, So Near is not just an exhibition: it is a living community. Artists from different places come together as if in a large family and tell their stories. Engaging in a dialogue with the viewer, sharing their experiences, and inspiring each other, they discover new horizons of creativity.’
The project is made possible by the EsArtSociety multi-regional creative community.
