Angels

Crossing the bridge to the Red October Chocolate Factory I saw a couple of young angels. Found out after that they are part of an ongoing art project, a whole group, although no one quite seems to know whether there is a point.

Energy

I feel very honoured to have the opportunity to work with some of the people here developing their cultural and creative industries. Having visited both Proekt Fabrika and Zavod Flacon, I can see investors, curators, project managers, architects, artists, designers and others who exploring new and creative uses for the asset-stripped factories left over from the Soviet period and the more recent privatisation.

 

Like East Berlin after the wall came down, these old industrial buildings offer incredible opportunities. Right now, they have the empty beauty of ruins.

 

But when I ask about future plans, it is all about wait and see. There is plenty of energy and activity, but the kind of driven ambition one sees in western culture is less in evidence or at least less expressed. This is a country where expectations have often been thwarted, and where ambition was often connected to the unpleasant careerism of the apparatchiks. And we are in (yet another) global financial uncertainty…

A bit of culture

Went to Winavod today. This is a converted wine factory, now the site of commercial art galleries and – today – hosting an event called Design Acts. Lovely spaces made in and across the series of brick-built 19^th century buildings and much interesting work to see; as well as my first sighting of the trendy Moscow crowd- the event was heaving. Some great reportage photographs by Sergi Maximishin and some fab animation shorts. The Russians have a bad name for creativity in the West, tainted with the bling factor of the new rich, and the continuing emphasis on copyism in the art and design academies; but it is clear that a new generation is attempting to pull away somehow.