About the archive

Tatyana Volkova’s art historical practice started at the beginning of the 2000s, under curator Andrey Erofeyev. The earliest period documented by her archive covers the projects she was involved in while working in the Department of the Newest Trends at Tsaritsyno Museum‑Reserve and the Department of the Newest Trends at State Tretyakov Gallery. In parallel to that, Volkova grew up professionally as an independent curator, soon becoming one of the pioneering Russian researchers of the new art movement known as activist art, or art activism. A key participant of art‑activist events since the late 2000s and co‑founder of the projects ZHIR (FAT), MediaUdar International Festival of Activist Art and the platform Fem‑Club, she has managed to collect a large amount of materials, including photo and video shoots, paper as well as digital documents.

An important part of the collection embraces records documenting the preparation of comprehensive institutional exhibitions realized with the curatorial involvement of Volkova: Russian Utopias, Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow (2010); Silence Equals Death: Art, Protest, Rock’n’Roll 1980–2010s, ARTPLAY Center of Design, Moscow (2012); global aCtIVISm, ZKM Karlsruhe (2013); 1st Garage Triennial of Contemporary Art, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2017); dis/order. Art and Activism in Russia since 2000, Ludwig Forum, Aachen (2017).

About the collector

Tatyana Volkova (b. 1978, Moscow) is a curator. She graduated in Cultural Management from the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, where she received her master’s degree in 2000. Volkova also studied at the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) (New York, 2004). In 2000–2013 she worked in the team of curators headed by Andrey Erofeyev in the Department of the Newest Trends at Tsaritsyno Museum‑Reserve, the Department of the Newest Trends at State Tretyakov Gallery, and in the “ArtKladovka” Archive of Russian Contemporary Art.

Наталья Фомичёва