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INTERNATIONAL VOLUNTEER EXCHANGE
CONTEXT: art, environment, volunteering
A volunteer project and an artist residency on lake Baikal
In August 2019, an international volunteer project was held in the Irkutsk region. The first international group joined a trailbuilding project of the Great Baikal Trail, and the second - took part in the artist residency CONTEXT. In the end, both groups met at a festival.

The purpose of the festival and the residence: to create an open field of mutational practices and hybrid interaction without such dichotomies as spectator/artist, people/authorities. Talk about personal/political using feminist discourses, adapting queer ecology to everyday practices, removing the dichotomies of us/them, nature/culture, subject/object, living/non-living, human/non-human. Strengthen and increase the intentions of solidarity and tolerance with the help of the new ecology of sensuality. Develop alternative political forms of interaction and support grassroots initiatives of self-organization in the village.
Artist residency was a laboratory for producing situated knowledges and artistic research. Artists explored the political, socio-cultural context of the villages of Bolshoe Goloustnoye and Maloe Goloustnoye.

The fluid contour of the interests of the art residence: dark ecology, queer ecology, aesthetics of animalism, ecosexuality, non-biological relationship, hybrid epistemologies, post-feminism/cyberfeminism /xenofeminism, ecology without nature, hyperobject, posthumanism - deconstruction of metanarratives, object oriented ontologies, planetary pansexuality, deconstructing environmental panic, attempting to overcome human semiosis, identity policy based on the example of local communities, decolonial effort, ecology and feminism as types of advanced concepts and practices, re-writing all types of connections and relationships.
During the residency, the following projects were implemented:
- a series of workshops with local residents;
- creation of a monumental mosaic panel on the shore of Lake Baikal /Alexandra Vyrva, Nikita Zhdanov, Evgeniya Tulyankina/;
- research photo/video interviews;
- discursive material cartography / panel [code] /Alina Blinova, Sergey Shevchenko/;
- nomadic "tent-confessional" /Galya Yaptik/;
- art interventions /Bazinato, Lena Siseleva/;
- situational installations, exhibition laboratories, street galleries /Yulia Kazakova, Bazinato/;
- body laboratories /Anastasia Loshakova, Daria Sedova, Julia Bylenok/;
- recycling a "tent cemetery" and print agitation workshop /Anya Kurbatova/;
- workshops in the children's military-patriotic camps /Meka Muratova, Victoria Kravtsova, Maria Kuznetsova/;
- video performance and site-spesific installation /Sebastian Acker/;
- video work /Meka Muratova; Anastasia Lonshakova/;
- meditative sit-in /Alexey Talstou/.
Participants of the residence and festival: Galina Yaptik (St. Petersburg), Anya Kurbatova (St. Petersburg), Yulia Bylenok (St. Petersburg), Alexey Talstou (Minsk), Bazinato (Molodechno), Daria Sedova (Moscow), Meka Muratova (Berlin), Sebastian Acker (Berlin), Yulia Kazakova (Berlin), Alina Blinova (Irkutsk), Sergey Shevchenko (Irkutsk), Anastasia Lonshakova (Irkutsk), Elena Siseleva (Irkutsk), Alexandra Vyrva (Irkutsk), Nikita Zhdanov (Irkutsk), Evgenia Tyulankina ( Irkutsk), Maria Kuznetsova (Irkutsk), Evgeny Masloboev (Irkutsk), Maria Gulina (Minsk), Natalya Blyshchik (Minsk), Ksenia Popova (Irutsk), Karina Pronina (Ulan-Ude), Enkhtur Batbold (Mongolia), Maria Hankhunova (Ulan-Ude), Maria Namolova (Ulan-Ude), Yumzhana Sui (Ulan-Ude), Irkutsk anarcho-punk-libertarian association "Chernyi Kvadrat", musical groups Runway53, Supersonic, Jautjums, SHIZA, Blixakiss, Sasha Plesh, Humelly, Tesalado, Yo, Ice Key and Uha Ra. Films: Carolina Dutka, Alisa Erokhina, Sasha Kulak, Eleonore de Montesquiou, Liina Siib, Christian Vagt.

Coordinators: Alexandra Shalgunova, Anastasia Shmeleva (Irkutsk), Victoria Kravtsova (Berlin).
Curator: Maria Dmitrieva (St. Petersburg).
The procedural activity of the residence was summarized in two festival days, which included the following formats: presentations of the works of artists made during the residence; discussions; lectures; workshops; performances; gigs of local music groups; seminars and presentations from local initiatives and communities. We are thankful to everyone involved!