
SHNK — School of New Capitalism (ШНК, Школа нового капитализма)
is an art collective founded in 2024 by artists Katya Gavka (b. 2005, Krasnoyarsk) and Yulia Kropacheva (b. 2001, Saint Petersburg). The duo works in active collaboration with guest participants and audiences. Their practice seeks to democratize art and to make the inner workings of the art economy openly visible through a para-institutional approach. SHNK have exhibited in and curated a range of exhibitions and residencies, including a solo project at Ivany Gallery, Curators’ Exhibition at the hybrid space NII SNEGIRI, and the contemporary art fair Blazart’24.
CV & curatorial projects
education
HSE Art and Design School, Moscow Design and Contemporary Art'27
curatorial projets
2026 — HARD IMAGE, Ivany Gallery, Moscow
2025 — SPONSORS’ ROOM, within CURATORS’ EXHIBITION, NII Snegiri, Moscow
CURATORS’ EXHIBITION SHNK x ART BLAGO x AU GALLERY, NII Snegiri, Moscow
UNPLACED GROUNDS by Masha Rogova, NII Snegiri, Moscow
PASSIVE/AGGRESSIVE by Polina Vainer, AU Gallery, NII Snegiri, Moscow
BLANK__SPACE, NII Snegiri, Moscow

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Curatorial Statement
Drawing on institutional critique, we create projects as artist-curators. Our practice examines how the conventional exhibition space might be reconceptualized: by deconstructing the rules that govern it, and by bringing art into publicly accessible urban space. Engaging with post-nonspectacular art, we look for new directions for it in the present moment. Often through performative strategies, we explore how society is structured and, above all, its relationship with art. SHNK’s works invite viewers into direct dialogue with the artists.
We work as an independent curatorial duo, operating within an institutional logic, with a site-specific focus
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Event production
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personal projects
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CURATORS’ EXHIBITION
group exhibition / in collaboration with ART BLAGO х AU GALLERY/ NII SNEGIRI / 3.05–5.05.2025
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key objectives:
Develop an original curatorial festival that reflects current trends in contemporary art while establishing a distinct identity within cultural landscape. The project aimed to create a coherent platform for artists and curators. The objective was to foster meaningful exchange, support emerging curatorial approaches and establish a recognizable positioning for the festival within the contemporary art scene.

The former Research Institute of Precious Metals as first discovered, prior to any residency intervention
exhibition concept:
The «Curators' Exhibition» creates a unique model — a multi- component hierarchy: curators, nominal artists, have their own curators. «Curators of curators» take a hypercuratorial position, they distance themselves from artistic objects and aim at exposing the very curatorial logic, its set design, and rhetoric, calling for a reflexion over the very institutionality of curation and problematizing the boundaries between the curator as a facilitator and the curator as an artist. At this time, the participating curators find themselves in a special ambivalent role: on the one hand, they are the authors of their own exhibitions, on the other — part of the thought of other curators who are «above» them. The line between curation as an organizational practice and curation as an artistic expression is no longer blurred, but extremely sharp and palpable — like a dissection line along which a new institutional sensitivity is being assembled. The exhibition thus becomes not only a space for the presentation of curatorial projects, but also a field of institutional self-observation, where the structure begins to reflect on itself.





our role:
Developing the overall exhibition concept and curatorial framework, coordination of the selection and curation of participating projects, devising the exhibition layout and spatial plan. Creation of the visual identity system: designing guidelines and communication materials. Advertising and production management.Исходный размер 1930x1010
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results:
During the exhibition, each participant-curator was assigned a curator for the event, through their joint work were created 18 exhibition projects. CURATORS’ EXHIBITION achieved over 1000 visitors over three days and hundreds of mentions on social media. A partnership has been established wis major info and gastro patners such as «masters», «artuzel», «rovestnik» kitchen etcИсходный размер 1930x1010
Exhibition visitors’ social media reposts
02 case
HARD IMAGE
SHNK solo exhibition / IVANY GALLERY/ 27.06–19.07.2026


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key objectives:
Study the aestheticization of labor through its continuous mediation and circulation in the modern art economy. Develop an exhibition format that will allow one to see the mechanisms of aestheticization through one’s own participation in them, rather than through external criticism. Establish cooperation with an independent non‑profit art space.exhibition concept:
In modern culture, labor is inevitably subjected to aestheticization through its permanent mediatization, which causes it to circulate within the artistic economy. Artists work with the tire service as a specific workspace for low‑level service, and at the same time, it inherently exists in a dual mode — as a function and as a potential visual element simultaneously. The exhibition exists not as an exposure of aestheticization, but as a transparent demonstration of it through its own inclusion.Исходный размер 1930x1010


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