“Please don’t throw it away”

The event is part of the programme accompanying Kristina Syrchikova’s exhibition “Native Spots”.

The 20th century left an enormous visual legacy, a significant part of which is vernacular — everyday, family — photography. We often encounter it knowing nothing about either the photographer or the people in the picture. What draws artists who work with photography to this material? How do they work with it? And if a relationship forms between the viewer and the person in the photo, is there a special etiquette for it? We will discuss these and other questions at PENNLAB.

Participating artists:
Vladimir Averin — documentary photographer, artist, illustrator, educator. Works with photography, animation, collage, alternative printing processes and text.
Oksana Afanasyeva — multidisciplinary artist working mostly with installation, objects, ceramics and textiles. Graduate of the MMOMA School of Contemporary Art (2022) and the Stieglitz Academy (ceramic artist, 2010–2016). Her main themes are childhood, trauma and self-reflection.
Nadya Koldaeva — artist, independent curator and photobook publisher. Graduate of the Garage Museum × HSE master’s programme (2022), student of the Fotografika Academy and of the second season of the “Fotoosnova” print-practice laboratory at Svody (2024–25). In her research she approaches photography as a point of visibility for various cultural practices.
Alla Mirovskaya — photographer, artist, curator and teacher. Her projects explore memory, photography as an object, and the connection between a place’s cultural DNA and personal history and identity. Graduate of the Joseph Backstein Institute of Contemporary Art; resident of the Siyanie Centre for Contemporary Art (Apatity), VYKSAAIR (Vyksa) and the COLLAB 2023 programme at GES-2 House of Culture. PENNLAB hosted the exhibition “Photobook: History, Document, Object”, curated by Alla.
Marina Sazonenko — artist, graphic designer, childhood researcher, educator and author of creative programmes for children and adults. Head of development at the Fabrika Centre for Creative Industries. Collaborates with YAMUZEY (Kineshma), Textil (Yaroslavl), the Gulag History Museum, the Museum of Moscow, the Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve, the Nekrasovka Library and others.
Olga Skvortsova — artist working with documentary and art photography, archives and installation. Explores personal and collective trauma, memory and postmemory, and the search for identity.
Kristina Syrchikova — artist, curator working with photography, and teacher. Head of the School of Project Photography. Graduate of the Sreda Obucheniya Higher School; studied photography at Fotodepartament.Institute and the DocDocDoc School of Contemporary Photography. Graduate of the Garage Museum × HSE master’s programme (2024). Her work addresses everyday life and personal narratives of people in the post-Soviet space.
Lena Kholkina — artist and independent publisher. Teaches at DocDocDoc, Photoplay, Universal University and others. Resident of Winzavod Open Studios, season 10 (2023/24). Works with photography, video, objects, dance and the book format.
Elena Sharganova — artist, graduate of the MMOMA School of Contemporary Art (2023), resident of Winzavod Open Studios, season 10 (2023/24). Graduate of the Surikov Moscow State Academic Art Institute, where she teaches. Working with archival materials and memory-keeping objects, Elena tries to capture the passage of time. She explores the habitat of contemporary people and the historical and cultural memory encoded in the plasticity of the city.

Moderator:
Daria Panayotti — curator, translator and historian of photography, staff member of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, co-organiser of the international conference “After (Post-)Photography”; formerly a research fellow at the Department of Contemporary Art of the State Hermitage.

More in the article (in Russian)