Pedagogical Poem
The Archive of the Future Museum of History
Concluding exhibition
6 November 2012–6 January 2013
Presnya Historical Memorial Museum
Bolshoi Predtechenskii pereulok, 4, Moscow
Pedagogical Poem consists of an interdisciplinary research programme and exhibition conceived by Arseny Zhilyaev and Ilya Budraitskis and organised by V-A-C Foundation. This unique project bridges history, contemporary art and pedagogy and originates from a series of over 100 lectures and seminars led by Russian and international artists, historians and cultural theorists that took place between March and November 2012 at the Presnya Historical Memorial Museum in Moscow.
The project culminates with the concluding exhibition The Archive of the Future Museum of History devised by a group of participants of the Pedagogical Poem series and presented at the museum as an outcome of the educational programme and independent archival research work carried out there.
A history museum is a place that represents memory and enters into unique and essentially important relations between the past and the present. On the one hand, the collective experience of previous generations represented at a museum highlights the similarities between then and now and the knowledge of history based on the way history develops. On the other hand, it is an institution created by the state with the purpose of realising its cultural and educational politics that limits and frames the visitor’s experience.
The role of museums of modern history—the former Revolution Museums in Eastern European countries—is even more ambiguous. At the beginning of the 20th century, these museums demonstrated to the world an unprecedented example of democratization and innovation, while during the post-revolutionary period and years of political stagnation they became a dogmatic tool of expression for the official ideology of the party. But, at the end of the 20th century after the collapse of “real socialism,” East European museum institutions not only lacked any fresh methodological bases for their work but they were forced to deny the reasons for their own creation.
The Archive of the Future Museum of History is divided into several zones that reconstruct the atmosphere of an archive. Thus, a professional museum excursion through memorable historical locales of the Presnya district engages in a dialogue with an improvised walk through places that are important for the personal histories of the participants of Pedagogical Poem in the form of a documentary film. Central investigations are devoted to the history of the transformation of the Presnya Museum itself. One important part of the exhibition is a public library offering full access to the course material and books connected to the central themes of the project.
Exhibition Authors:
Alena Artasheva, Katerina Beloglazova, Gleb Napreenko, Konstantin Novikov, Alexandra Novozhenova, Alexander Povzner, Elizaveta Slavina-Mirskaya, Pavel Bulgakov, Yakov Kirillov, Yegor Koshelev, Valeria Dobrokhotova, Irina Melnikova, Paraphrase theatre, Katerina Chuchalina, Asya Klescheva, Isabel Makgoeva, Ilya Bezrukov.
Programme Contributors:
Vladimir Arkhipov, Alexander Bikbov, Dmitry Vilensky, Ekaterna Degot, Olga Zhitlina, Michael Lowy, Alexander Ivanov, Nikita Kadan, Tamas Kende, Yegor Koshelev, Vladlen Loginov, Kirill Medvedev, Viktor Misiano, Andrey Oleinnikov, Anatoly Osmolovsky, Alexey Penzin, David Riff, Sergey Popov, Nataliya Smolyanskaya, Vlad Sofronov, Mikhail Ugarov, Avdei Ter-Oganyan, Evgeny Fiks, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Maria Chekhonadskikh, Igor Chubarov
V-A-C Foundation is a not-for-profit private institution founded in Moscow in 2009 and committed to supporting contemporary art in Russia. Our focus is directed towards contemporary art and cultural practice with the aim of providing a platform for creativity in the wider sense of the word. We strive to be actively engaged in artistic production, rather than the patronage or sponsorship of ongoing artistic processes. V-A-C is deeply committed to the growing importance of art made in Russia as well as the new generations of artists from around the world.
