Art in the public realm in Nizhniy Novgorod

I have been invited by CEC Arts Link, an international Arts organization to visit Nizhniy Novgorod, one of the third largest cities and also one of the oldest ones, situated at the beautiful Volga River.

CEC Arts Link is an organisation which encourages and supports creative cooperation among artists and cultural managers, enriching communities in the United States and Eastern and Central Asia and the Caucasus.

It's now been almost a week that I have spent here in Nizhniy with a group of absolutely lovely and admirable young students. They have been all so unbelievably courageous to question and face themselves and finally to come up with a project which both speaks about themselves and and the city they live in. Some of these young people have lived here in Nizhniy Novgorod all their lives and some have only recently arrived; but what unites them all is that they are all looking for a new, deeper and more meaningful connection with this city they call their homes. 

I want to thank all of the people who have made this project possible and especially I would like to express my thanks to Jane Lombard, Susie Katz, Fritzie Brown, Anna Gore, Sasha Suvorkov, Olga Tatosyan, Nastya Tolstaya, and last but definitely not least the lovely and passionate Masha  Zveleneva, my faithful and supportive translator!

This blog is divided in four parts. The first part is this introduction. Then each project by each student is introduced with a text and accompanying pictures. Then chronologically backwards, in the third part, one can find out the story of each student, how he or she came up with the project and why this is a specifically meaningful thing for them to do. Then finally, in the last part, which in fact was written shortly upon my arrival in Nizhniy, you can read an account about my travels from New York to Nizhniy Novgorod and how it felt for me to arrive there and get introduced to the city and it's people.