Belgorod Oblast Art Scene Archive

Launched in 2022, this independent project by artist and curator Victor Zhdanov gathers and preserves materials on contemporary culture in Belgorod, Stary Oskol, and Gubkin since the 2000s and currently comprises two audiovisual archives.

The Experimental Underground Music Archive contains artifacts related to the regional music scene. An important part of the archive consists of creative documents of Andre Morrison and Maksim Mamonov of Stary Oskol, the avant‑garde band Filosofiya Udobreniya and participants of the Belgorod noise scene Aleksandr Grebenikov, Mikhail Dolyanovsky, Sergey Yezhov, Victor Zhdanov, and Dmitry Kholodny.

The Art Scene Archive includes documents tracing the history of exhibitions and projects by Belgorod artists of the late 2010s and early 2020s, including the art groups GAT and Khrizantema, Daniil Burtsev, Mikhail Dolyanovsky, Victor Zhdanov, Elizaveta Kolomiets, Nikita Klyon, and Sofya Oreshkina.

The archive is being expanded with documents submitted by key figures of the regional music scene and young artists from Belgorod Oblast.

About the Archivist

Viktor Zhdanov is an artist and curator. He graduated in graphic design from Belgorod State Institute of Arts and Culture (2015) and Baza Institute of Contemporary Art (2019) and has an MA in pedagogy from the Higher School of Economics (2021). From 2008 to 2016 he was a participant of the independent experimental music scene in Belgorod Oblast. He was the initiator of the Microbiennale of Horizontal Initiatives (running since 2019). He lives and works in Moscow.

Readymade objects by Andrey Polushkin at the exhibition New Childhood at the Center for Youth Initiatives (Belgorod). Photo: Maks Cherman