Svetlana Nikolaenko, Stanislav Knop, Varvara Kosenko

Passing Time

00:03:25, video (FHD)

Recording Architecture is an educational project of the Hermitage Youth Center within the exhibition “Golden Generation. Modernism in Finnish Architecture and Design'” (The State Hermitage, 14th of November 2015 till 31st of January 2016). The project is dedicated to the modernist architecture that is represented by the unique buildings of St. Petersburg and Vyborg. The participants of the project perceived in their own manner the atmosphere of the places visited. As a result each team created their own short film about one of the five unique examples of modernist architecture. Personal stories told using the modern era format – video, brings to life the buildings of the bygone generation.

Curators: Elizaveta Kaluzhskaia, Artemy Baranov

Getting started to shoot Anikushin’s Studio we wanted to express not only the visual look of the building: the constructional frame, textures, light, play of light and shadow, – but it’s influence, power impact to the museum’s guests. The historic fate and the peculiar building’s function have left the traces on it’s architectural image. Trying to convey the atmosphere and vibes we were searching for the methods and techniques which defines the Studio’s character.

On one hand it is a Magic House of a True Artist, where he lived and worked, realized his ideas. The “Around the World” paper sculpture exhibition has helped us discover this image of a miracle: what is it if not a miracle – an Idea, Action, Realization,Piece of Art, – which outlives it’s creator? Only due to this the Studio still has been living.

On the other hand it is a building hidden from passers’ eyes in Vyazemsky Gardenat Petrogradskaya side, a haven of silence and peace. Rare visitors, lonely sculptures, technical cold light, time seems to pause here – everything is in the rigid spheroid structure with the immense face windows permitting the diffused northern light through. The building seems to breathe but it’s not able to get anybody. Till now it remains unappreciated, undiscovered treasure of our city.

We attempted to put these associations to our work. The child’s view that is naive, pure, warmth, dreamy and the adult’s one being logical, reasonable, experienced, rational, strict, together unite these different visual and sense images of Anikushin’s Studio.