Critical Mass. Season 4
Creative Association of Curators TOK presents fourth season of 'Critical Mass', international project of contemporary art researching public places. The new season is held during 2016 and 2017 in the youth organizations of the Petrogradskiy district of St Petersburg.
Participating artists: Colectivo Warehouse (Portugal), Anne Siirtola (FInland), Avenir Institute/Denis Maksimov and Timo Tuominen (Russia/Finland), Livsmedlet/Ishmael Falke and Sandrina Lindgren (Finland/Sweden), Alevtina Kakhidze (Ukraine), Stefan Constantinescu (Sweden/Romania), Samuel Boche (France), Ruben Pater (The Netherlands) and Roman Gornitskiy (Russia).
Creative Association of Curators TOK is pleased to announce a new, already fourth, season of the project ‘Critical Mass’ held in St Petersburg for the fourth time. The new season lasts for two years and focuses on an analysis of the history of youth movements in the 20th century and the contemporary context of youth initiatives and organizations. It showcases collaborative initiatives with teenagers and young people and facilitate their active engagement into contemporary creative processes, especially those taking place in the urban environment and public space. The main objective of the fourth season of ‘Critical Mass’ is the integration of new artistic, educational and social practices into government organizations working with young people and involved in youth oriented policy making.
This season of ‘Critical Mass’ is held in a new format and based on a series of residencies hosting international and Russian artists at the youth clubs in the Petrogradskiy district of St Petersburg, and one former pioneer camp on the shore of the Gulf of Finland. During the residencies, artists, architects, designers and performers work closely with young people and create new projects reflecting upon the history of youth movements in USSR, Russia and other countries. They reflect upon everyday lives of teenagers and the role that young people play in current sociopolitical processes. 7 residencies took place from August 2016 till June 2017 and 7 new commissioned projects were realized and presented to audiences in 2016 and 2017.
Since it began in 2010, ‘Critical Mass’ has been operating as a discursive platform for research, reflection and discussion of emerging issues in St Petersburg. The project has brought together curators, artists, designers, social scientists and members of various local communities and governments. Over the past years, we have touched upon a wide range of themes related to research, revitalization and recoding of public spaces in St Petersburg. We have explored the identity and potential of semi-derelict suburban districts and studied the influence of boom construction on city life in the late Soviet era. Together with artists and locals we have discussed environmental issues, migration processes and freedom of speech in contemporary Russia. Learning about the history of Gromov’s Dacha, an architectural monument of the 19th century, we conducted multilayered analysis of the governmental policy aimed at the preservation of historical heritage and cultural memory, as well as researching new cultural hubs on the map of St Petersburg. Every two years, TOK arrives at a different venue or context, which we find curious and in need of public attention. Deploying research strategies and creative social practices, we visualize potential scenarios for resolving local conflicts and create possibilities for a conversation between citizens, the local and international art community and local governments. Since the beginning of ‘Critical Mass’ we have collaborated with engaged young people interested in arts and activism who joined out project as volunteers, interns or event participants. This season, we expand our collaborations with young people and youth organizations and focus on the analysis of contemporary tendencies in youth policy in Russia at state level.
The network of youth clubs in St Petersburg is a heritage of the Soviet era and Soviet youth policy. Youth clubs used to exist in every neighborhood and offered teenagers and young people a wide range of extracurricular activities being at the same time a product of the state ideological discourse. Today, they mostly take the form of theme-based community centers for young people operating in diverse formats - from amateur theater studios to centers of social integration for students at risk of early dropout, or so-called ‘troubled youth.’ Many of these clubs are eager to attract teenagers but they lack resources and expertise as well as new approach in work with young people. During the fourth season of ‘Critical Mass,’ TOK challenges the clubs to update and broaden their vision of working with young people and become more relevant by integrating contemporary artistic and social practices and inviting art professionals for collaboration. Invited artists, designers and architects through their projects propose new forms of inclusion of young people in youth club activities that can vary from creating collective performances and visual narratives to building new architectural projects in public space. For young people this is a new creative experience allowing them to gain new skills and test their talents and abilities, while for the clubs, these experiences could lead to shaping new strategies of their educational policies, and a transformation of their approach to education and arts.
The fourth season of the ‘Critical Mass’ project included a broad public program in different venues in the city. It consisted of lectures and talks, discussions and thematic dialogues with artists, researchers, historians, and designers and lasted from October 2016 to December 2017 with its final event being the international conference "Fast Forward to The Future' about the history of youth movements and today’s youth policies in Russia and internationally. The season’s results and conference thesis will be presented in a bilingual publication expected to be published in 2018.