“This is a Museum” — an exhibition series created for the opening of the new building of the Tretyakov Gallery on Kadashevskaya Embankment

Curated by Nina Gomiashvili.

Museum attendants and custodians are the spirits of a place. We are not used to seeing them, yet without them these cherished spaces simply cannot exist. This photographic series is an attempt to make these people visible — to show their faces and to speak their names.

For me as an author, the relationship between a person and a place has always been essential. The scale of the place does not matter. It may be the vast expanses of Arctic wastelands or a workshop measuring three by three meters. The principle remains the same: a person grows into their place and becomes its guardian. A place cannot exist without a person, and a person cannot exist without a place.

In my work, I conduct a visual exploration of this relationship in different forms and across various regions of Russia.

The project was photographed in seven major museums: the Tretyakov Gallery, the State Historical Museum, the Polytechnic Museum, the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, the Shchusev State Museum of Architecture, the State Museum of Oriental Art, and the Tsiolkovsky State Museum of the History of Cosmonautics.

The series consists of 14 full-length, highly detailed portraits. The protagonists are placed within the environments where a significant part of their lives unfolds. Museum attendants are depicted in exhibition spaces, against the backdrop of key objects that visually reflect the specificity of each collection. Custodians are portrayed within the museum storage — a “sacred” territory usually closed to visitors.

If attendants can be seen in the galleries, custodians remain in the shadows. In this project, they all step into the light together and stand before the viewer in full height.