"Living Currents" (2018−2019) is a synthetic art project at the intersection of sociological research, contact improvisation, visual art, and performative collective expression, where the North is the source for the production of meanings and its inhabitants are the creators. Although it is based on the knowledge of the place (which includes stories about every day), the artistic message is universal and can be read in the context of any peripheral city that has lost its history and is rediscovering it.

Plastic media verbatim was created on the basis of the artistic expression of the results of an online field study with people who were born and raised in Arkhangelsk, including those who left it and live today in Yaroslavl, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Moscow, and Sweden. The hypothesis of the study was the existence of memories through which a place is perceived, as well as the fact that through them a cultural community arises. During the study, from May to August 2018, one hundred residents of Arkhangelsk were interviewed.

The understanding of the city as a living macroorganism and yourself as its cell, an inseparable part, is presented through the memories and sensory sensations of every participant in the process.

2019

Project team
Director: Eva Valieva
Choreographer: Nikolay Shchetnev
Artist: Ekaterina Yarunova
Technical support: Alexey Tafi
Project curator: Kristina Dryagina
Actors: Nina Nyanikova,
Konstantin Mokrov, Vanya Mishin,
Anna Rysenko, Kirill Pivovarov,
Zina Gagarskaya, Maria Isakova