Vasilisa Prokopchuk and Evgeny Bragin

It is a form of art that exists in the public space and is open for interaction to all viewers. Vasilisa Prokopchuk (VP): It seems to me that a city or any space is a place where, just as in a gallery or a museum, we can showcase our work. For me, public art is a more global art space.

Evgeny Bragin (EB): People are more comfortable in an urban setting, rather than within gallery walls with formalities and limitations. People perceive art differently in a public space. We were primarily inspired by the Nikola-Lenivets art park, most notably, House over the Forest and Remote Office.

VP: While working on our object, we met an artist from Perm, Vitya Frukty. He specializes in public art and street art. He uncovers the particular features of a given city and amplifies them with his artworks. He sees a tree standing before an empty wall and adds the shadow of the tree, transformed into a palm tree, to the wall. It’s great when an artist learns about the space and cultivates a certain type of artistic vision in the viewer.

EB: People would usually pass these items without a second thought, while the artist was able to create a whole architectural art object from those same items.

VP: It is very important for me not to make the object the main feature of the space. It should be judiciously incorporated into the environment but not be too bold of a statement.

EB: An object must provoke a person to think about new themes, offer the opportunity to view something in a new light. It’s not about overstating oneself, it’s about starting a sort of dialogue. If, for example, we’re talking about staying power, then our goal is to discuss the fact that things don’t exist forever. The object itself can encompass the concept of aging and, with the passage of time, will begin to disintegrate. People could begin painting murals on it, break it down further. Again, it is just a way of interacting with the object. The artist could guide the viewer: break off a piece of the object and do something with it, draw something, or offer another option for interacting with the object. It’s in the vein of the broken windows theory. If you don’t repair one broken window in a house, then all of the windows will be broken in the end. It’s a matter of time. The same thing applies here: the artists just need to set an example...

When we learned that the Nikola-Lenivets art park was hosting the competition Lost in Translation, an idea for our future art object immediately popped up, focusing on the concept of inclusivity. That’s, perhaps, the first time when we first began to truly consider a large-scale project.

VP: I became interested in street art and art interventions in cities to promote interactions between people a long time ago. I previously participated in various competitions, but not in Nikola-Lenivets.

EB: The park is very inspiring; it makes you think about everything that you could do.

The Impassable Wood at the Red Garden exhibition is a visually altered “branch” of the Impassable Garden that will be presented in the future in Nikola-Lenivets. For the exhibition at Red Square, in the heart of Moscow, we created a metallic framework for the base. That makes the installation both more solid and organic looking. A completely wooden frame will be used in the natural setting.

The Impassable Wood is a system of hanging branches. You can touch them, move them, listen to them hitting one another in the wind, walk through them. You can imagine that once upon a time a forest grew right where the exhibition is being held. The art park, where our object will be hosted ultimately, was originally a field that was covered with a forest. Today the art park features an artificially grown glade, most of which will be used to create the Impassable Wood. It’s difficult to imagine now that once there was a forest in place of Red Square, but that’s the reality of things.

VP: Lateral thinking and the ability to perceive the surrounding space from a different point of view. Any ordinary item has the potential to inspire future work. Moreover, the artist of the future must be able to communicate with specialists in relevant fields, find a common language with them, collaborate without losing the thread of the concept behind the work.

EB: In my opinion, the ability to work with everything that you have access to. Not all artists can get expensive materials and technologies. It’s important to adapt and transform the available materials to the desired effect.

VP: Humanity interacting with nature, including interactions within an urban setting. Urban settings have their special sort of natural elements.

EB: I am very interested in those things that were before us and that will be after us. I’m always trying to understand what was any place like before industrialization, before the rise of cities. Moreover, what will happen to a place after all life leaves it? In Russia, we have many locations that people deserted. We love Northern Russia. Vasilisa was born in the North. We appreciate the natural beauty of this region, including the villages where no one lives and the scientific centres where no one works. Each place has its own story to tell. And your work may be the way to tell it.

EB: If we’re talking about the Wood, then it is very important for us to divert the attention of the viewer from the bustle of the urban centre. If we’re talking about artworks in general, then we are striving to develop humanity’s ability to view simple things in a different light.

VP: I strive to set up a dialogue with the audience, establish a theme, and allow viewers the opportunity to engage with it, think about it. I am interested in learning what ideas people will come to through this dialogue.

VP: There is no specific place. Ideas arise spontaneously. A place, appearing quite common at first glance, can inspire ideas for a future public art object that will fit well in that environment.

EB: We love abandoned places, deserted villages and cities. They quickly change and decay after people cease living there. We are attracted to those sorts of places, we like observing them over time, trying out various ways of communication.