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The 4th ART PROSPECT Festival was supported by the St Petersburg Culture Committee and jointly organized by CEC ArtsLink and Yarky Hostel & Space. The Festival theme was ‘Games’ and included primarily art groups and artists working in the field of participatory art (i.e. art in which the audience is regarded as a co-author of and full participant in the act of creation). Viewed in the context of contemporary art and collective identity, the concept of play allowed the artists to investigate interaction as experience and practice, and confront participants with a variety of interesting questions: What historical role has been played by artists’ associations in Russia and abroad? What does contemporary art have to do with the concept of the ‘collective’? And how can local communities who have no connection with the world of art be involved in the process of creating a work of art? The festival aimed to find points of contact between the collective and the artistic by using the concept of play as a way of rethinking social and aesthetic interaction.

 

The Festival included artists and arts collectives from St Petersburg, Izhevsk, Moscow, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Georgia, Italy, and the USA, including Flux Factory, Elastic City, Trial Version, Bouillon Group, Cyland Media Art Lab, Jess Hirsch, Kendal Henry, Kollektivnye deystviya, Sever-7, Obiedenenie Parazit, Gorod Ustinov, Gruppa 705, and Tvorcheskaya manufaktura PTKh.

The participants presented installations, objects, and interactive media projects, and participated in a series of masterclasses, tours, and performances. The works were displayed at Yarky Hostel & Space, on the grounds of the State Academy of Forestry, and in inner courtyards ulitsa Novosibirskaya.

 

Special projects at this year’s festival included a performance by the Italian art group Trial Version (as part of the Arts for the City program), and an exhibition by the art group Kollektivnye deystviya, which was shown at Lyuda Gallery in October 2015.

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