In early June, our team traveled to Nikola-Lenivets to scout the space for the «Arkstoyanie» festival. The primary goal of the trip was to gather material and examine the locations featuring art installations for the subsequent design of the festival route. We were allotted two days for collaborative discussion and concept development. Ultimately, we decided to tie our route into the theme of memory. During the trip, we actively collected photographic material that will form the basis of our final zine guide.
The mission of our project is to reimagine the space of the Nikola-Lenivets art park through the lens of visitors' emotional perception and personal memory. Our team was tasked with developing a unique conceptual route for the «Arkstoyaniye» festival, connecting key points in the park with the HSE Art and Design School’s lecture hall.
The key objective is to transform a standard park walk into an interactive exploration, the outcome of which will be a printed zine guidebook.
Exploring the park space, we understood something crucial: people come here to view the installations, and they seek vivid experiences—they want to have fun and gain their own unique memory to keep forever. This is precisely why our entire photo series is inspired by the phenomenon of memory, and we decided to design a route that functions as a chain of emotional interactions.
The main outcome of the trip was a fully formed and defended concept for an interactive route, based on the phenomenon of human memory. The collected set of photographic materials allowed for the development of the zine’s visual mood. The developed route helps festival guests construct their own meaningful experience, leading them to the School of Design lecture hall to discuss the route they took, and leaving them with a completed art zine as a souvenir.
The project is being implemented as part of the university’s official preparatory work for the festival. Our expedition, conceptual developments, and the final route idea were coordinated with the School of Design curators overseeing the construction and lecture series program, and were successfully defended and approved by the main organizers of the «Arkhstoyaniye» festival.
CONCEPT
People reflect on their feelings in the festival locations and capture memories on material media.
A journey for future memories, where festival guests use a zine card to document their emotions with stamps. The guides—researchers stationed in various locations—will witness each guest’s experience. Our guides can be identified by their special costumes. This route operates for the first two days of the festival; on the third day, a reflection session will take place in the lecture hall. We are also offering guests who complete the route a chance to win prizes (as a keepsake).
MECHANICS
Guests will be provided with a zine-card (an A3 sheet folded into an A6 book). This card marks our various locations where researchers—around eight people in total—have stamps. The route can begin from any location. We do not create independent activity stations; rather, we attach ourselves to existing objects and activities of the festival. Stamps of different colors will be placed on the map, symbolizing the participant’s state at each location. At the end of the route, there will be a «vandalism board» where guests can leave their photos or any inscriptions. We will take it with us as a memory of you.
activities: - friendship bracelets as keepsakes - blind henna tattoos - photos on tickets - postcards from the trip (etc.)
The goal of this route is to create your own map of memories, documenting your individual experience. At the end, a prize (such as a disposable camera) will be raffled off to motivate participants to complete the journey and collect all the stamps.
What guests will take away
A zine card that can become an interior object (a poster or a small book). Back in Nikola-Lenivets, you can recall the experience from the festival and share it with friends—new memories overlaying old ones.
PHOTOMATERIAL:
