The State Hermitage Museum: Children and Education

This project includes master classes and creative exhibitions (1 day, 1 hall, 1 piece) with famous artists, meetings with the curators of international art project, round tables on timely issues in contemporary art, lecture series on cotemporary art, discussions and seminars. Representatives of the specialized departments of Saint Petersburg's higher educational institutions (the department of Museum Sciences of Saint Petersburg State University, the State Russian Herzen Pedagogical University, the I.E. Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, the Stieglitz Saint Petersburg Art and Industry Academy, and more) are participating in this program.

RETROSPECTIVE. Pages of the Petersburg Art History
January, 2013.
Annual program dedicated to the prominent representatives of the Leningrad school of 1950-90s. The program includes discussions, demonstration of the works of artists, meetings, commemoration gatherings.

"Simple" rules.
Halls of the Youth Center in the General Staff Building.
January 23 - 27, 2013
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Education program addressed to the youth and the students presents the bright stages of the Petersbburg avant-garde, starting from the underground exhibitions of famous artists - non-conformists of the "Khrushchev thaw" period, which led subsequently to the recognition of the Leningrad underground and destroy of the borders of tight system of socialist realism. The project involves Petersburg artists, critics, collectors and Museum staff. The programs are arranged in the form of discussions, commemoration gatherings, documentaries run, recitals on the selected events in the artistic life of the city in the second half of th 20th century, major representatives of the Petersburg creative style, who had already passed away.
"It's impossible to give an objective story of the past time. It's either our fancy memory which accidentaly picks the moments in life or the other people who revalue those instead of us and start believing that's exactly how the things were. Only the material objects which remained do not lie. They didn't change their mind and stayed unpersuadable, they remained exactly as they were when "invited" to the house as part of the collection... The works of each painter remember his voice, at times trembling like Shalom Schwartz', feeling lost, the same as his little people. Or harsh, concise and self-confident voice of Vladimir Vasmi... Valentin Povarov, Lyudmila Kutsenko, Evgeniy Mikhnov-Voitenko, Gennady Ustyugov, Rodion Gudzenko, Valentin Levitin ... listen to their voices
Everyone has his own simple rules ".
Anna Frants
The programme includes the round table, discussion, run of the video records from the archives of the Kolodzei, recitals.

Fedorov on Vacation.
Olga Jurgenson
March, 13 - 17, 2013

Olga Jurgenson graduated from the Ilya Repin Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg and since 2002 has been living in Great Britain.
Participant of major group exhibitions, including the Liverpool's and the Moscow's biennale, also projects and residencies in Europe, Asia, and Australia. Repeatedly was a winner of scholarships and grants from various European foundations, in 2011 was nominated for the Kandinsky Prize.
The works are presented in the collections of the State Russian Museum, National Centre for Contemporary Arts , the Freud's Dream Museum, other public and private collections of Russia, Europe and USA.
In the new project "Fedorov on Vacatopn" Olga Yurgenson interprets the philosophical treatises of N.F.Fedorov, in which the philosopher calls for the resurrection of the ancestors ("fathers") through the mastery of nature and the transformation of the human body, and the achievement of immortality, in the view of the philosopher, is a "common cause" of humanity. The way Olga Yurgenson understood and interpreted the idea of N.F.Fedorov in her installations and collages, can be seen in the halls of the Youth Center in the General Staff Building.

The program features:
1. Fedorov on Vacation. Installation.
2. A series of collages.
3. Workshops on collage techniques.

Past:

CYBERFEST
November 23th-28rd, 2012
The events of the CYBERFEST international festival of cybernetic art will be held in the Youth Center for the fifth year in a row (with the support of the Saint Petersburg branch of the National Center for Contemporary Arts).

Alexander Pozin, Marina Spivak.
Firewood and fine arts
A series of workshops in the Hermitage's Youth Educational Centre
2-6 December 2012

1. Marina Koldobskaya - painting
"Hunting and Gathering"
February 21-26, 2012

This project is intended for students, young artists, and everyone interested.
The "open studio" concept is widely known and has been successfully applied all over the world in major museums, institutions of higher learning institutions specializing in art, galleries and cultural centers. During the course of this project, the facilities of the Youth Center will be transformed into an open studio, where the artist will create a piece in cooperation with the audience (students, volunteers, children) who will become active participants in the creative process.

2. Pyotr Shvetsov - painting
Workshop is put off for unknown period due to the artist's illness.

3. Dmitry Kaminker and the Kolomyagi Group - sculpture
This event has been postponed indefinitely.

4. Alexandra Dementieva (Belgium), Aernoudt Jacobs (Belgium), Anna Frants (USA), Koen Theys (Belgium)
A multimedia project entitled "The Timekeeper"
May 29 - June 3, 2012

2. RETROSPECTIVE. Moments from the history of art in Petersburg
September 2012
An annual program, dedicated to famous representatives of the Leningrad school from the 1950s-1990s. The program includes discussions, presentations of the artists' work, meetings and a commemorative evening gathering.

POTENTIAL. ART IN PROGRESS
March-May 2012
A series of master classes and interactive classes with leading Petersburg artists.
This project is intended for students, young artists, and those interested members of the public.
The so-called "open studio" concept is widely known, and is applied successfully around the world, in leading museums and institutions of higher learning, galleries, cultural centres, etc.
During the Potential Project, the Youth Centre facility in the General Staff Building will be transformed into a creative laboratory for the visiting artists.
Over a week, the artist will familiarize the public with the process of conceiving and creating a work of art and draw viewers into the creative process.
The opportunity to actively participate in the project, consisting of interactive programs, will be available not only to students, but to parents and children as well.

Participants

Alexandra Dementieva (Belgium), Aranaud Jacobs (Belgium), Anna Frants (USA-Russia), Koen Theys (Belgium), Archive of Letters about Time from Leah Stuhltrager (USA-Germany)
International Multimedia Project TIME KEEPER
May 29 - June 3, 2012

Implacable and indiscriminating, Time is a momentum. It makes a human being understand and aspire to be understood, drives one to create something more meaningful than oneself, and defines one's purpose.
Works exhibited at this show are far from the topic of the day and up-to-the-minute reactions to the current events, but today, when History made its demands on each of us yet again, thoughts on Time are pressing more than ever.