about the project
 

16 - 28 february 2006 pavilion of contemporarry art OPEN SKY Chernyshevskogo 55, Barnaul, Russia +7 3852 36925 ©   www.biryukoff.com

soБЫТИЕ this project is dedicated to the tragic events in Beslan in 2004 the name of the project translates as EVENT but in Russian the prefix "so" suggests a play on the words "event", "being" and "co-existence". We have had many attacks before Beslan, but this time it was the most outrageous and absurd act of brutality, where fully armed adults were shooting in the backs of the children who were trying to run away from the school where they were captured for 3 days without food and water...  Beslan was very different from previous attacks - at that time the whole big country became united like one family, many many people could not watch news without tears when this was happening. The question is:  WHY only a great grief can unite us and make us remember that we are humans not just population or a community of consumers? if everything happens for a reason - WHY such things happen? WHY do we keep electing governors who are not responsible for their decisions and who keep making us the victims of their mistakes? WHY do we let politicians use our racial, religious and cultural differences  to manipulate our minds? are we mersmerized? or so ignorant? or both? WHY are we so reluctant to look for the answers in ourselves?  these and other questions I was asking myself when I was working on soБЫТИЕ. this project is not meant to remind people that they are behind different sides of  barricades. hopefully people who come to my show would wake up for a moment and become less passive and careless about their own lives. i wanted to stir up  some questions that have no answers and make people notice similarities that unite us rather than look for differences that make us enemies.   2006 alexei biryukoff