Curator of the exhibition: Julia Aksenova

Author cycle: Nikolay Palazhchenko

May 17, 2017 in the workshop of the Red Center for Contemporary Art WINZAVOD will open the second exhibition of the jubilee cycle "Farewell to Eternal Youth". The participants of the project "Laboratory of Urban Fauna" will show how they see the urban landscape of the future, and how the heat released by computer equipment will affect plants and animals. Project title saying: "City Sauna. How I learned not to worry and fell in love with pollution. "

The research project "Laboratory of urban fauna" was founded in 2011 by artists Alexei Buldakov and Anastasia Potemkina. At the center of their attention is the relationship between people, animals and plants in the city. The participants of the group are interested in any manifestations of wild life in the city, whether they are pigeons, "parasitic" cow-beans or bacteria. The projects are based on the theory of self-generation of life from mud: under the influence of heat, moisture or sunlight from inanimate elements or rotting organic matter, living organisms arise.

The founder of the research project "Laboratory of urban fauna", artist Alexei Buldakov: "We are inspired by the uncontrollability of the urban fauna, its vitality, ability to adapt and yet remain independent of people as artists. The exhibition "City sauna" is a study of environmental pollution and its role in the evolution of animals. How does surplus heat energy from the grid affect ecosystems? What surprises will be presented by the principle of spontaneous generation of life in the urban landscape of the future? "

The project "City sauna" is multi-component and involves different types of media: objects, video, silk-screen printing, photo, graphics. In the center of attention are three types of municipal waste: organic compost, dry hawthorn stems and heat of red-hot microcircuits. Thematically, the exhibition consists of two parts. The archival part is devoted to the history of the issue of the origin of life in the Middle Ages and the new time: illustrations and quotations from books on philosophy, alchemy, natural science and Francesco Redi's experiments. Artistic part - the objects created by the authors, which embody the idea of ​​the origin of life in the conditions of modern civilization. Each object is accompanied by an explanatory text.

Curator of the exhibition Julia Aksenova: "Contemporary art is increasingly turning to problems of a planetary scale. Society around the world understands that it is on the verge of a humanitarian and environmental disaster, and this scenario can only be changed if it interacts with other species. The authors of the project "Laboratory of urban fauna" are trying to imagine a future epoch, radically different from our present ideas. The exhibition "City sauna", on the one hand, takes us back to the origins, literally to the "compost", from which we all originated, on the other hand, looks into the future, in which the organic corporeality of the world is inseparable from its information and technological matter " .

The series of exhibitions "Farewell to Eternal Youth" is the central project of the anniversary program of the Center for Contemporary Art WINZAVOD. Within nine months, 12 exhibitions of representatives of a new generation in contemporary Russian art will be organized. Within the framework of the cycle the first exhibition - Palazzo Koshelev Yegor Kosheleva has already opened. The exhibitions of Evgeny Granil'shchikov, Dmitry Venkov, Arseniy Zhilyaev, ZIP groupings, Polina Kanis, Taus Makhacheva, Irina Korina, Vladimir Logutov, Misha Most and Recycle are planned.

Simultaneously with the opening of the exhibition "Laboratory of Urban Fauna", which will be held on May 16, will be held "Evening of Vernissages" WINZAVOD - a traditional event when galleries located on the territory of an art cluster open their new exhibitions. On the same day, the finisher of the exhibition Palazzo Koshelev Yegor Kosheleva is scheduled.

About the project "Urban fauna lab"

Urban fauna lab is a research project, formed in 2011 by artists Alexei Buldakov and Anastasia Potemkina. He studies various aspects of the life and coexistence of plants and animals in the city. The works of the Laboratory of Urban Fauna were exhibited both in Russia and abroad, for example, in the Whitechapel Gallery in London.

Alexey Buldakov was born in Kostroma in 1980. In 2003 he graduated from the Faculty of Social Anthropology of the RSUH. From 1999 to 2004 he was a member of the group of artists, writers and cultural activists "Radek". Anastasia Potemkina was born in Moscow in 1984. In 2008 she graduated from Moscow Architectural Institute (Moscow Institute of Architecture). In 2012-2013 she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.