Collaboration of artists masharu and Ekaterina Sedacheva
Within the project 'Climate - Adaptation - Local communities'
Curated by Masha Birukova (Centre of Social Innovations - CSI Arkhangelsk) and Alexandra Orlova
In collaboration with the scientist Dr. Anna Nemchinova
This project took place at the White sea cost line in the north of Russia in a small village Pertominsk. Often the sea shore is a space of harmony and recreation. Nowadays it has become a risk area due to climate change issues. The sea comes closer and closer to the village. We explored Pertominsk with the local artist Ekaterina Sedacheva. The object of our attention was the mutual influence of land and water: both in physical and socio-cultural aspects.
Pertominsk in summer. Sea approaching houses in Pertominsk through ‘eating’ the land. The villagers try to slow down the process by building the wooden structures at the coastlines. Screenshot from the video by Roman Vassiliev taken within the project 'Climate - Adaptation - Local communities'.
Pertominsk is a village on the Omega Peninsula on the south side of the White Sea, in the Primorsky District of the Arkhangelsk Region. It arose on the site of the Pertominsky Spaso-Preobrazhensky monastery, founded in the 17th century. Pertominsk was the site of a concentration camp established by the Soviet Union in which various political rivals of the Bolsheviks were detained. This was one of the first such camps, established by the Cheka in 1919. Along with the death camp set up in Kholmogory it was part of the Northern Camps of Special Designation. Pertominsk is not easily accessible. It is not connected by a road to the main land. It is possible to come there by boat or An-2, a Soviet mass-produced single-engine biplane manufactured beginning 1946. Due to the harsh weather conditions the territory of Pertominsk is often cut out of a number of days, as planes and boats cannot go there.
Pertominsk in autumn. Sea approaching houses in Pertominsk through ‘eating’ the land. The villagers try to slow down the process by building the wooden structures at the coastlines. Photos by masharu.
Ekaterina Sedacheva mostly works with painting and graphics. She comes from Pertominsk. Ekaterina’s long-term observations of the sea show serious changes taking place here due to water impact. The alteration of the coastline, the destruction of the shores, the sea getting closer to the housings, the transformation of soils and grounds, the loss of monuments, and much more - all this is a consequence of the action of water. According to the observations of Ekaterina in the last 50 years the sea "swallowed" at least 10 meters of the land. In one of the storms, the ice masses collapsed on the old wooden strengthening of the coast and cut them away together with part of the sandy shore. The owner of the house, from which the sea took a significant part of the land and approaches the house, constantly builds the coast strengthening in the form of log cabins and fills them. Villagers strengthen along the shore cliffs folded by sands, manually. The sea is approaching the brick walls of the ancient Permatinsky monastery. The south of the area is blurring the sea, on the contrary, puts off on the shallow water the washed sand, advancing on an extensive swamp.
Sea approaching the monastery of Pertominsk. Photo by masharu
The change in the coast of the White Sea allows us to talk about global cyclic processes and how people's activity in the last hundred years affect its transformation. In the work on the borderability of the Earth and Sea dialogue, artists masharu and Ekaterina Sedachev focus not only on changes markers, but also try to catalog disappearing and slipping.
"Dialogue between Land and Sea" exhibition view at the Museum of Artistic Development of the Arctic, Curated by Masha Birukova (Centre of Social Innovations - CSI Arkhangelsk), Arkhangelsk, Russia. Photos by masharu, December 2020.
In this project we explored scientific and symbolic meanings of the relations between people and landscape, including their interpretations through religious images. We created an installation with a variety of works (drawings, objects, photographs) that reflect both elusive and hopeful scenes, and shows the relationship between earth and water with a focus on culture, history, society and personal perception.
"Dialogue between Land and Sea" exhibition view at the Museum of Artistic Development of the Arctic, Curated by Masha Birukova (Centre of Social Innovations - CSI Arkhangelsk), Arkhangelsk, Russia. Photo by masharu, December 2020.
Guests viewing video of Pertominsk at the "Dialogue between Land and Sea" exhibition, Curated by Masha Birukova (Centre of Social Innovations - CSI Arkhangelsk), Arkhangelsk, Russia. Footage by Roman Vassiliev. Photo by masharu, December 2020.
Ready found objects, drawings, photos, videos, infographics with analytical information, and soil and water samples collected and created by artists complement each other in a spatial installation called “Dialogue between Land and Sea”. masharu (who has their roots as well in Arkhangelsk region) approached the situation in Pertominsk, trying to discover what is beneath the Earth’s surface through collection samples of clay, peat, wood, and water from this particular place.
Earth samples and earth tasting at the "Dialogue between Land and Sea" exhibition, Curated by Masha Birukova (Centre of Social Innovations - CSI Arkhangelsk), Arkhangelsk, Russia. Photo by masharu, December 2020.
Visitors are deployed to the Cabinet of Rarrets or the White Sea Kunstkamera, where artifacts from the shores, graphic images of landscapes and visions, samples of the Earth - the space that combines the authors with a different manner is collected. Ekaterina Sedacheva chooses a visual manner, and well-known viewers of graphics and painting mediums. While masharu uses synthetic artistic practices, returning the concept of "Museum" from the science of scientific institution to its Renaissance value of the meeting of remarkable objects.
The collectibles are becoming samples of land (peat, clay, sand, etc.), with which the visitor of the museum is able to directly interact. There is no museum distance between the spectator and the collection, on the contrary, we fall under the intimate charm of the private collection. Sensual perception is available at all levels: visual, tactile, at the level of flavors and tastes. Tasting of land samples on the one hand, the traditional practice of geologists, with another almost magical action (adoption, reunification), with the third memory of a complex-explanatory desire to have chalk or other sedimentary breeds or soils. At the intersection of these fields there is a fertile environment for the exchange of opinions and impressions.
"Why does the shore in Permatinsk retreats? Who is the guilty - climate, sea, changes in the earth's crust, human activity?" - the text of the article by our collaborator Dr. Anna Nemchinova considers climatic, tectonic, geomorphological causes of the sea level fluctuations on the White Sea coast of the Onega Peninsula, and explores reasons for these issues. The article became a part of our installation in the exhibition "Climate and People: Changing Together", curated by Alexandra Orlova. This exhibition was a part of the IV Art Arctic Forum 'Ecosystems of the Invisible', which aims to decolonise the knowledge of the North and about the North.
Work of masharu and Ekaterina Sedacheva at the exhibition "Climate and People: Changing Together", curated by Alexandra Orlova.
Curator Alexandra Orlova about the exhibition: "We try to see and tell how the life environment of the North continues to change with the climate. In expeditions, we collect knowledge of local communities about the weather, then analyze and compare it with scientific data. Often our communication with people 'on Earth' reveals the features of climate change, non-obvious to external observers. For example, the temperature on the planet is not smoothly rising, but sharp fluctuations - as a result, in the north there are thaws earlier, later sustainable frosts come, during the winter the temperature more often 'goes through zero'. As a result, the road surface is destroyed faster, trees are sick and breaking, approaches for agriculture are changed. Artists working with us 'show' these phenomena for emotional-shaped perception. The view of each artist is unique: someone speaks about climatic changes, someone is divided into their understanding of the life of local communities, but all the work reflects today's reality."
Ekaterina Sedacheva and masharu at the opening of the exhibition "Climate and People: Changing Together" in the Arctic Nature Museum in Arkhangelsk, 2020
With this project got invitation to an International Conference “Climate risks and Space weather” in Irkutsk (Siberia). The conference took place in Irkutsk State University, Department of Chemistry and Geography along with the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics of Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences. The conference focused on the current climate and environmental risks and brought together along with Russian participants, experts from Germany and China. Our contribution to the conference was rather special within their format, as this was the only contribution in the programme, addressing the issue of climate change from rather artistic than a scientific perspective. Moreover, while the other presentations had a more theoretical background, we focussed on the local community struggles as the result of the climate change, as well as provided a hands-on Earth connection experience with a pop-up art installation.
Map of the locations of the new found clay in Pertominsk with added descriptions about taste and smell to them. Used at the "Dialogue between Land and Sea" exhibition, Arkhangelsk Russia. Designed by Anna Zamanipoor, December 2020.
The project was a part of “Climate, adaptation, local communities”, initiated by the Forest school. The Forest School physically based in the Arkhangelsk Region is a friendly young team that collaborates with specialists to practically learn about nature, the forest and ecology, as well as traditional and modern village life and agriculture. The Forest School is organised on the principles of respect, self-organisation and care for nature. They not only study nature, ecotechnology, economy, but also learn to live in a team, in a community in which people of different ages communicate with each other with equal respect.
One of the projects by the Forest School is “Climate, adaptation, local communities” and is supported by the European Union’s “Raising awareness of climate change among young people of Northern Dimension regions” programme. The goal of the project is to build partnerships between NGOs, local communities and universities for climate change awareness, community adaptation and resilience. Within “Climate, adaptation, local communities”, contemporary artists are invited to conduct artistic research and present their work within art-science exhibitions. How does climate change affect the life and traditional way of living in the villages and settlements in North-West Russia, and in the Arkhangelsk region in particular?
Dialogue between Land and Sea, text, translation from Russian
- Let’s create a dialogue. I am the land, and you are the sea.
- Where is this red clay from which the walls of the monastery were made?
- There is no red clay here. Maybe there was before.
- The earth is alive. It is constantly changing. Previously, the clay was here, and now, perhaps, the sand.
- The earth changes under the influence of the water - the sea and the rain. Earth is a water filter. There is an ancient clay here: brown and blue. Where we are standing now, there used to be the bottom of the ocean.
- Here is the clay - brown color of the earth and clay - blue color of the sea.
- Brown clay is fat, it is good for ceramics.
- According to the Bible, the human is created from clay, as a pot of ceramics.
- At the same time, a human consists 90% of the water. We go from the water, because the whole life originated in the water.
- We are all the grazing of this beach. It seems that the earth eats the earth.
- The sea eats the earth. I saw how the sea has eaten so much land. We fight with the shores. Now we are still holding. And later will be unknown. Pomor villages have always lived in communal labor. Without mutual support, one will not survive here.
- Did you sign up as Russian or Pomor during population when census?
- Russian is wider than Pomor. Why to narrow myself? If you want to be pomors, come, live by the sea, eat the 'sea bread'.
- What do you think about climate change?
- Climate change is a change in human. People crushed.
- How do you think, when the next apocalypse comes?
- It is already happening. I do not like the shade of hopelessness and panic, which is now running. We need to start with how beautiful the world is.
- My grandmother told me that human life is like a river, but only it has an end. We came from the earth, and we will go back into the earth. This is a circulation of land in nature.
- It's time to work with soil not stitch, but deep into. Do you grow something on earth? For me, most importantly, the miracle is performed in spring, when something grows out of a small seed.
- There is so much pain in these places and so much beauty, and just by learning to embrace pain, one can embrace the beauty.
Exhibitions and presentations:
2020 Arctic Nature Museum, Arkhangelsk, Russia, "Climate and People: Changing Together" (group)
2020 Art Museum of the Arctic Exploration, Arkhangelsk, Russia, 'Dialogue between land and sea' (duo)
2021 Lomonosov Palace of Culture, Arkhangelsk, Russia, 'Dialogue between land and sea', curated by CSI Arkhangelsk (duo)
2021 Arctic Challenge Adaptation Conference, talk 'Domesticating landscapes: Re-considering settlers perspectives on the Arctic cities through ArtScience collaboration', online event, Norway
2021 Talk 'Dialogue between Land and See', Conference on Climate risks and Space weather, Irkutsk State University, Department of Chemistry and Geography, Irkutsk, Russia
2021 The Regional Museum of Ustjany, Oktyabrsky, Russia, 'Dialogue between land and sea' (group)
References:
'Диалог земли и моря»: проект художников, посвященный Пертоминску, представят в Архангельске', Dvinanews, 25-11-2020, Russia (Russian) >>
'Климат меняется... и мы тоже!', Onegard, 05-12-2020, Russia (Russian) >>
'Открытие выставки Климат и люди: меняемся вместе', Arctic Art Forum, 06-12-2020, Russia (Russian) >>
'Диалог земли и моря', ЦСИ Архангельск, 12-01-2021, Russia (Russian) >>
'Domesticating landscapes: Re-considering settlers perspectives on the Arctic cities through ArtScience collaboration', Arctic Challenge Adaptation Conference, by A. Orlova, June 2021, Norway (Russian with English subtitles) >>
‘Dialogue Between Land and See’, Climate Risks and Space Weather International Conference Materials, pages 182-187, ISBN 978-5-9624-1956-5, by A. Orlova, M. Rudnaya, E. Sedacheva, June 2021, Russian (Russian) >>
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