Social challenge and reasons for project’s initiation

Immediacy of the social problem

Many cultural sites in small cities, built in the second half of XX century or earlier, in XXI century are perceived far long behind the times. The proposal of cultural institutions is not there to meet the demand of local communities. The staff of cultural institutions in small cities often lacks knowledge and expertise and can not apply to participate in grant programs, which makes their access to financial resources fairly complicated.  Another problem of the state and municipal cultural institutions is a limited and too traditional scope of services they offer to the public. Performance evaluation system is based manly on quantitative indicators (the number of museums, theaters, etc.), ignoring the long-term social impact on the society.

Cultural leaders in small cities and villages are still out of the system of state support to culture, though it is them, who become centers of cultural life.  A strategy of support to such leaders would enable the state to avoid wasting money and time on developing and introducing inefficient projects, which often do not work.

As a cultural platform ART-WINDOW was launched at the beginning of 2019, though Charity Foundation “Art, Science, Sports” has been conducting Art Festival ART-WINDOW at the territories of presence starting from 1 of March 2017. The Festival united theater, cinema, music, literature and arts.

During the Festival’s transformation into the platform, sociologists were requested by the Foundation to conduct a research in all four small cities of company’s presence. The general conclusion, made in the first city was, that there was no specific industrial esthetics, like in other industrial cities. The general trend among young people (aged 14 – 30) was the intention to leave the city, and one of the reasons for that was a low cultural level.  Residents of the second city were more positive about the amount of cultural events, though, they mentioned lack of state-of-the-art cultural sites and possibilities for artists. 

Based on these comments, the Foundation started developing individual programs for each of the focus cities.

Project description

2019 program

The cultural platform includes grant and educational components. The grant component is running contests of cultural initiatives for local communities and enthusiasts. The educational component is conducting lectures, practicums, master-classes for public leaders, and popular cultural events for the general public. Some events are conducted by the project team on own, for example, part of the program #newformat. There are also partnership events: Street Culture Festival “ 30 Faces of the City”, conducted in all four small cities (in partnership with “Artmosphere” Company), regional hearings for the Actors Faculty at RATI-GITIS, celebrities’ visits within the “Big Concert Tour” program, nonfictional weekends in partnership with Cinema Company “First Cinema”, etc.  The cities have been already visited by the National Philharmonic Orchestra under Vladimir Spivakov, “Helicon Opera”, The State Hermitage collection, educational projects of the Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art and Garage Museum, ballet of I. Moiseev, etc.

There are educational programs in collaboration with the most prominent cultural drivers “The City of your Opportunities. Ideas, Concepts, Tools”, “Management in Culture” (in partnership with the Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art), “Urban Social and Cultural Project Management” (in partnership with the Contemporary Art Museum “Garage”).

Both grant and educational components are available for everyone interested. Anyone can apply for the grant contest and implement his/her project. There is access to all educational courses, tickets to exhibitions, shows and tours are free-of-charge. The platform is aimed at supporting local cultural initiatives and creating strong communities in “working” cities with limited cultural infrastructure.

Team and partners 

Team

• Mariana Zolina, head of the cultural platform
• Julia Sheina, Coordinator
• Svetlana Titova, Coordinator

Partners

• Partners of educational programs: Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art, Contemporary Art Museum “Garage”, High School of Art Practice and Museum Technologies.
• Partners of cultural events: the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Hermitage Museum, the State Russian Museum, the National Philharmonic Orchestra under Vladimir Spivakov, Federal Program “Big Concert Tour”, Russian Institute of Theater Art — GITIS, “Sovremennik” Theater, MHT od Chekhov and others.  
• Methodical partners: Center of Social Project Management “Platform”, Agency “Strategic Communications”.

Resources

Financial resources

Program’s budget in 2019 is 100 mln RUB.

To conduct cultural and educational events the Foundation uses local facilities: coworking, galleries, Cultural Centers, etc. The Foundation comes to regions with own material and technical resources, but also uses local resources, if needed.

Achieved results

Immediate results:

Group “15” was set up in Stary Oskol following the educational program. The group consists of active residents of the city, who started to develop their own projects to apply for the contest, organize events and, as believed by the ART-WINDOW team, can become a strong local cultural community. 

During the 1,5 years of platform’s run, the Foundation conducted over 350 events, 80% of which were held in the four small cities, and 20% – in regions’ capitals. Novotroitsk has become the art – residence of the 5^th Urals Industrial Biennale of Contemporary Art.

According to Mariana Zolina, the efficiency of educational programs is proved by the quality of grant contest applications. The platform is still young and has just started to show the results of consistent work, but there is a positive feedback already.

Project’s distinctive features and know – how

The Mariinsky Theater at Novotroitsk Cultural Center (population is 88 000 people), Vladimir Spivakov in Stary Oskol, the Hermitage collection in Belgorod and Kursk. ART-WINDOW is not the first and the only grant program supporting culture in small cities, having an educational component. But the best know-how of the cultural platform is the opportunity for the local cultural community to see the insides of the largest cultural events, for example- tours, get expertise from country’s best exhibition curators, theater and other facilitators, and, based on the received knowledge, develop and get finance for a project, which is head and shoulders above the traditional for this city project level.

Challenges and solutions

From the very beginning, public opinion, range of interest and local mindset are the main challenges of the ART-WINDOW program. On the one hand, there is a demand for a quality cultural product (for example, according to the feedback from the cities’ administrations, the Street Culture Festival with a break-dance and graffity was enjoyed by everyone), but, on the other hand, there is an opposition to everything new.

The art – residence of the 5^th Urals Industrial Biennale of Contemporary Art held in summer 2019 in Novotroitsk was attended by Swiss artist Luc Mattenberger. He spent two weeks in the city, where he found no sign of urban culture. As a result, he decided to organize a city tour for the city residents, but as he himself saw their city. Not everyone enjoyed this tour. 

But the good thing is, that contest paintings displayed during the street art festivals were never ruined by vandals. The reason is, that there were paintings of local artists among them, and locals could fail to accept something brought from outside, nut would never ruin something local.

It becomes more complicated, when the opposition comes from local authorities. Though ART-WINDOW always comes to cities with its own human and financial resources, they still need local authorities’ approval and noninterference.

Plans of further development   

One of the main ART-WINDOW goals is launching city cultural centers for regular cooperation of leaders and communities.

Recommendations

• Engage local talents into participation, do not just bring and take away the arts.
• Do something new for the city, with high quality and level, do not bring the level down to make it popular among local residents.
• Do not dictate trends, but provide choices, products of which culture each resident wants to consume.
• “Get rid of snobbery”, work with people with different backgrounds and views.
• Negotiate with local authorities, even if they do not like your idea.