The closing ceremony of the winter session of the Nickel-Polar Night 2022 Art Residency took place

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Ending of the Nickel-Polar Night 2022 Art Residency

On 2 March 2022, the traditional winter session of the Polar Night art residency was closed in Nickel.

Five artists and a curator from different Russian cities spent two weeks studying the environment of the polar village, its history, and actively communicating with the locals. The theme for this season was "Made of Nickel". At the closing ceremony, the artists presented the results of their work - sketches and photographs of objects, which may later be brought to life.

Vladimir Andreev (St Petersburg - Naberezhnye Chelny)

Vladimir specialises in kinetic sculpture and presented stunning sketches of "Cosmonaut" to commemorate the space history of the Pechenga district - in the late 50s the first cosmonaut of the planet, Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin, served in the village of Korzunovo.

Vladimir sees the sculpture as an art object rotating with the force of the wind on one of the hills within the city.

Yulia Shafarostova (Krasnodar)

Initially Julia had planned to develop an alternative sightseeing route for Nickel, but the project has been transformed into a guide to unusual places in the village. Julia is developing a map that will highlight wrought iron grilles and old signboards, panoramic vantage points, wall graffiti and other objects of interest, but which we pass by in normal life.

The great benefit of the project is that such a guide can be used by anyone, without the involvement of an artist.

Victoria Kravtsova, (St Petersburg - Simferopol)

Viktoria works with glass and has suggested installing a sculpture in Nickel, the Eye, a glass lens that refracts space, on one of the sites where you can clearly see the village. Another option is a weather vane with glass elements that reflect the transition from polar night to polar day and vice versa.

Vadim Kondakov (St Petersburg - Bugulma)

Vadim presented a series of sketches called "houseplants" made of metal. Walking around Nickel, he noticed how many plants are on the windowsills, how carefully they are cared for, nurturing the lack of greenery in the North. Metal is as much a living element to the artist as plants.

Ilya Shalashov (St Petersburg-Izhevsk)

Ilya is an artist-restorer and blacksmith. He has proposed a series of objects for Nickel with the idea of transforming metal. In his work, Ilya uses casting and forging techniques, corrosive elements and deliberate deformation, thereby showing what stages metal can go through, from ore to processing, to rusting and reuse. Very vividly echoes the post-industrial history of the village!

"We are happy that all the art residents had a fruitful time and presented sketches", says Natalia Sidorina, project manager. "Moreover, many ideas were left with the artists personally, and they plan to refine them themselves or in collaborations with other artists already in their cities. It is also good to know that the participants of our residency dream of coming back to Nickel again and seeing it in summer."