ABSENT MONUMENTS | 2017 

Curated by Maria Kramar

The exhibition Absent Monuments develops on a curatorial project that started while in residence at Zarya CCA in 2015, when research into the local context, conducted alongside students of a month-long training course, sparked an interest in the idea of «nonmaterial monuments.»

Absent Monuments explores the material forms of memory existing today in the nonmaterial landscape of Vladivostok.

The monument to Russian Navy Admiral Vasily Zavoyko, which was demolished and replaced by a statue of Bolshevik leader Sergey Lazo. Zurab Tsereteli’s plans to erect the world’s largest statue of Jesus Christ. A proposed memorial to whalers. The dismantled monument to Admiral Gennady Nevelskoy. Augmented reality Ararat memorial. The U.F.O. memorial in Estonia. What all of these episodes share is a common interest in addressing a memory that cannot be accessed through any other means? Is it possible for a monument — generally a massive object, containing historical — to function in an ephemeral environment, such as text, visual images, sound, or even smartphone apps? In such forms, could it still continue to serve as a repository for memory?

The curator and participants in this project will rely upon a two-way process — both the commemoration/de-commemoration and the absence/interruption of monuments — to start a discussion on the city’s historical heritage.

The exhibition will present art works alongside archival documents, photographs, and found videos, as well as commentary by historians, archivists and sculptors.