The V I R T U A L R E A L exhibition will present new works created by the artists in 2020 as part of the academic programme of studies in contemporary and fine art photography at BHSAD. Students are not only authors of the works, but are also responsible for the curation and production of the show. The virtual space was created by Art Sound Light Interactive company based in Saint-Petersburg, Russia.
“We wanted to open an exhibition before the quarantine, but we had to change the format due to pandemic. It was important for us to interact with the audience, so we chose the format of a virtual reality. An important part of the exhibition was collaboration with IT developers and team work”, — says Natalya Arzamastseva.
Her work “Seven portraits of me” explores the relationship between photography and memory. It was inspired by the artist’s thoughts on how her own childhood memories are formed by photos and video from the family archive.
“Now is the perfect time to explore the opportunities new media gives us. By opening an exhibition in virtual reality and having it in public access we not only show our work, but also start a discussion about contemporary photography. The virtual space itself works as a statement that we explore and process alongside out finished projects. In a wider sense, such format balances between availability of technology and interest for the audience”, — remarks Alexander Ilyashenko.
In his installation “This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen” Alexander examines the relative nature of the concept of noise in the context of the catastrophe of the Hindenburg airship in 1937 through the mainstream media of that time: documentary photography and radio. The basis of his work was a series of eight amateur photographs of the Chinese photographer Fu Chu, which were not recognized by the newspapers due to inconsistency with the journalist’s code. They represented the tragedy emotionally: the photographs have high contrast, grain and long exposure.
The exhibition opens on 29 April at 19:00. During two days on April 29 and 30 everyone interested will be able to talk to the artists online to discuss the exhibition and ask questions. More details on the show are published on Facebook. You can visit the exhibition via virtualrealexhibition.com
