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ANNIVERSARY

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an independent work in collaboration with studio tosatti & the international summer festival of arts "the access point"
<< A familiar place: a border crossing, a Pyaterochka, a Neste gas station, a tricked-out self-service car wash, normal asphalt, decent walls, the surface of the present day. But the performers lead me - the long way! - to an abandoned building, and I see: it looks like constructivism, no, "industrial architecture" of the early twentieth century, a memorial plaque "A revolutionary weaver lived in this house... She murmured in 1906...". On the staircase is a very Soviet "very colorful" poster with today's date: "Solemn concert in honor of the anniversary of Amalia Kreuzberg". Empty (empty for decades) factory dormitory rooms, on one door a sign - this is where she lived, this Amalia - and debris, scraps of old things. Where there was a canteen (or assembly hall?), a man half-turned away, bent over an accordion, is playing something wistful. I walk through these ruins, touch these railings, doors, walls, shake off the dust from my clothes. Light comes in through the broken windows. The notion of a bygone time is being conceptualized. Revolutionary. Death. Ideology. Post-Soviet devastation. The uselessness of this place. Emptiness. The Krenholm manufactory, which existed for a century and a half and was closed. Ivangorod. Ivangorod in the RSFSR and Narva in the ESSR, a city divided by a river. Past. Present. The border with Estonia. A quarantined border. Association circles from a point in space.>> Nokolaj Pesochinsky for PTJ 2021-06-22
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The day of the City

it is a part of the 7-hour performance in Ivangorod, which was made at the Border Laboratory 2021 by Gian Maria Tosatti at the International Summer Festival of Arts "The Access Point".
Anniversary chapter: In an historical part of Ivangorod close to The Kreenholm textile Manufacture there is a half abandoned building with a memory board about a young revolutionary woman who was killed. I created a space telling her story.
The building looked messy and very dusty but it wasn't in a critical condition. There was a dark holl with boarded up windows on the first floor. On the opposite of that the second floor looked bright and full of air. On the first floor I found a room with a bunch of paving stones and a neatly folded lamber and there my story about a Kreenholm revolutionary woman who might have lived here.
visual & concept. irina komissarova performance’s director. maria ponomoreva creative team: butsan anastasia komissarova irina kuznetsov iliya luchnikova katerina ponomoreva maria
photo © polina nazarova
Together with Gian Maria Tosatti we made up a story about the Anniversary of the forgotten woman who fought to defend human rights more than 100 years ago.
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We had less than two days and more than 300 sq m of garbage and dead birds. After we cleaned it up I used a hand made soviet Xmas tree decoration called Dozhdik (drizzle). Today it may look a bit poor but people of my generation and older have fond memories connected to it. I also put a colour foil and a few used balloons and suspended it under the ceiling. It was blown by the summer winds in a beautiful way. I drew a poster of the Anniversary in soviet style which was still used in Ivangorod.
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The audience started their way from the stairs to the second floor where they saw a lonely accordionist and moved till the last room with another one memory board. Together with other 6 locations it was a part of a 7 hour performance of the whole city by Gian Maria Tosatti and 20 young artists. It looked like a parallel reality which is actually set in our days. The project had good reviews and the part that was under my direct responsibility was one of the most complex episodes of the work. I was the leader of the team of 5 artists who made it.
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