Alive_not_ Alive
project | experiment
in the Alvar Aalto Library, Vyborg, Russia
September, 2021 — December, 2022︎︎︎Photoreport
︎︎︎About the project (RU)
Manufactured objects of different shapes and sizes were placed next to the library and inside it. They represented diverse manifestations of the organic world – natural phenomena, processes and living organisms. These objects were here to remind us what the architect Alvar Aalto was thinking when he built the library: the complexity of the world of nature, which people share with many other lifeforms. A world which lives and reveals itself between the walls of old houses and inside abandoned mansions, in the park around the library, in the depths of the forest outside the town, within us and alongside us. All of these things are elements of the most complex system of relations from which the idea of the library grew. This was an experiment: how extraneous things that were alive | not alive could coexist in the building, and how long this coexistence would last. The project continued for five months.
For navigation around the building, we created a map with names showing the location of each object. We also made a website and telegram channel with a chat bot, which randomly gave links to publications, lectures and books on the project topic.
🦡🌪 🐳 Alive_not_ Alive 🍢 🌓 🌳
︎︎︎Map with object’s locations and short descriptions
Team
Olesya Gonserovskaya, artist
Lidiia Griaznova, curator
We worked with
Aleksandra Smirnova (descriptions of objects)
Anastasiia Zubareva (Russian literary editor)
Dmitry Koldyaev (chat-bot and photo)
Dasha Igby (photo and video)
With the support by Elena Rogosina and Elena Pekki (Alvar Aalto library) and Varvara Egorva (CYLAND MediaArtLab).
Contact us
🗯️https://t.me/alive_notalive💭️
💌a.live.non.a.live🐩️gmail.com