Parodos
San Donato
San Donato Group taking part in Artists-in-residence exchange programme of the project “Pažink svetimšalį / Close stranger”.
San Donato Group / Oleg Blyablyas, Alexey Chebykin, Evgeny Umansky.
Artistis will spend residency at Klaipeda Cultute Communication Centre (Lithuania). After the A-I-R the group will create a public art project for Klaipeda. The project will be realized in the year of 2014.
The San Donato group was formed in 2008 to bring together four artists, each being active in the field and practicing a range of genres and technologies individually, but looking for a different experience of collaboration and co-creation. The group focuses on public art projects and research in social contexts. The artists produce context and object installations which re-format the reality by means of invading the already existing artifacts or transforming different realms into those.
The artworks of the group have been widely exhibited, including «Monstares – Men, Murderers, Mighty Machines», Dresden, Germany (2008); «Contemporary art in a traditional museum» festival, Saint Petersburg, Russia (2009); «Tower Kronprinz: Second Advent» international competition, Kaliningrad, Russia (2009); «Art-Zavod» international contemporary art festival, Ekaterinburg, Russia (2009); V international art symposium «Alanica-2011», Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia; «A Complicated Relation, part II», Kalmar, Sweden; «Port city: There is no sea in here» exhibition in the framework of the IV Moscow Biennale of contemporary art, Ekaterinburg, Russia; «Russia Next Door. Art installations from Kaliningrad», gallery BWA, Olsztyn, Poland (2011).
Project “Close stranger”
«Close Stranger: promoting mutual understanding between population of Gdansk, Kaliningrad and Klaipeda through facilitation of exchange in the field of contemporary arts and culture» is a major project aimed at promoting collaborative work of Lithuanian, Polish and Russian institutions involved in contemporary arts and culture, and facilitating a greater understanding between the population of Gdansk, Kaliningrad and Klaipeda through cultural participation.
The project is run by the Baltic Branch of the National Centre for Contemporary Arts (Kaliningrad, Russia), the Centre for Contemporary Arts «Laznia» (Gdansk, Poland) and Klaipeda Culture Communication Centre (Klaipeda, Lithuania). It is designed for a two-year period, from January 2013 to December 2014.
The project is to launch a wide range of activities targeted at both the local communities and a large trans-border network of professionals such as contemporary artists, photographers, musicians, curators, art and cultural managers etc. A total of 11 exchange exhibitions to display the most interesting contemporary art practices are planned to be held in Gdansk, Kaliningrad and Klaipeda throughout the duration of the project.
Alongside this widely used approach to cultural exchange, the project will employ a number of other mechanisms for enhancing large-scale production- and process-based cooperation in the region.
