TEKHLIKIDI - #HAPPINESSISNEAR for Kaliningrad

Special museum project: multi-formed exhibition about happiness in art and the art of happiness

The project video

TASK

- to create and run a large-scale exhibition at the Kaliningrad Regional Museum of Fine Arts as part of Islands museum festival in October-November 2021

The Museum is located in the old building of former German stock exchange

Preparing to the exhibition

THEME

Islands is a festival of interactive programs, which is implemented in the museums of Kaliningrad for children and parents during the autumn school holidays.

In 2021 the festival theme was happiness. Children and parents were offered a great journey through museums, where they could play, feel, touch, inhale, laugh, wonder, tell, discover their happiness and, if desired, share it with others.

12 museums took part in the festival. Each has developed its own original route. As part of the concept, curators were invited.

CURATORS

At the Museum of Fine Arts the exhibition was created by Ilya Tekhlikidi, creative producer and musician, multimedia art and content maker, founder of HHD music label and HHD audiovisual studio.

The co-author of the exhibition and the game route was Ekaterina Sycheva, head of the Science and Education Department of the Kaliningrad Regional Museum of Fine Arts, curator of interactive and inclusive programs.

The project curators

IDEA

#HappinessIsNear is a special museum project for children and adults: about happiness in art and the art of happiness.

In each of the 7 exhibition rooms, the project team provided interactive assistance and co-creation with the audience of different ages: children, teenagers and adults.

The exhibition print

The entertainment and educational route of the Kaliningrad Museum of Fine Arts consisted of 2 parts – permanent and temporary.

The temporary part of the route was available only during the festival – from October 24 to November 28.

The entire route consisted of several zones and creative laboratories: festival visitors could become co-authors of comics based on works from the museum funds; use NFT digital technologies, digital-art and video art to reflect on the happy future of our world; derive your own 'formula of happiness' using modular puzzles inspired by the works of the artist Eliy Belyutin.

Formula of Happiness zone is a creative space where children and adults can create based on the works of avant-garde artist Eliy Belyutin in the permanent exhibition dedicated to his art

Special source of inspiration – perfume installation ‘Fragrances of Happiness’ by Olga Sidorova ( Kaliningrad, Russia)

The participants of the festival also have at their disposal an open area where they can relax, read books about art and create collages on the theme of happiness.

Waiting for Happiness Zone – a place for contemplation, creativity and blissful anticipation of happiness:

- collage studio and interactive exhibition of works by the Museum visitors

- Words about happiness – Kaliningrad and Moscowpoets and prose writers read their works about happiness

The festival route of the museum is aimed at inclusion and synesthesia – an interactive program designed to activate various senses.

Thus, the participants of the route are invited to find out what the city and works of art smell like in the interpretation of Kaliningrad perfumers, to become a participant in an immersive audio quest for the museum permanent exhibition 'Kaliningrad-Königsberg: Bridge over Time', and also to touch the special sculptures prepared as part of the project.

Happiness beyond time Zone – an audio quiz about the Kaliningrad-Königsberg bridge over time permanent exhibition

EXHIBITION ANNOTATION

Hi! We invite you on a trip to the Islands of Happiness!

Each creative space in our Museum of Fine Arts is an island for you to explore. What for? To find precious happy moments for which we love this life!

On the way to Happiness, many unusual creative tasks await you. You can not only look, but also touch, listen, speak and even smell. In a nutshell, be an active participant in everything that happens.

Guides to the world of art - talented artists, sculptors, videographers, musicians, photographers, writers, poets and perfumers – make it possible to look at the surrounding reality and yourself from new unusual angles, making many bright discoveries.

We wish you an unforgettable and happy journey!

CONTENT

Specially for the #HappinessIsNear project, young students of the Museum of Fine Arts studios created drawings on My Happiness theme

To capture happiness, the curators of the exhibition activated various senses in the audience: thus, the guests of the exhibition saw, heard, touched, smelled and felt happiness - with their whole body and heart.

As part of the project, we have collected from the archives of the museum and presented a special collection of 24 works by Kaliningrad artists, full of the sense of happiness.

Happy Way Zone – a gallery of works about Happiness from the collection of the Kaliningrad Museum of Fine Arts

Mirror for a Hero interactive zone with a tactile bas-relief Boy and lion. A cry of happiness by the Kaliningrad sculptor Vladimir Negodiay

We have also created a space for contemporary art and new technologies. Here, local and invited artists from different cities and countries fantasized what the happiness of the future might look like. The works were presented in various genres: digital art and NFT, video art, sound art, sustainable art.

Towards Happiness Zone – works by contemporary artists about the happy future of our world. Authors and works

At the same time, we involved the museum permanent exhibitions, integrating new formats and content into them: interactive areas for creating, an exclusive audio guide quest, special sound design, collaborations with writers, poets and perfumers.

City of Happiness Zone – sound installation at the exhibition Hoffmann’s town. Mysteries of two worlds

An opportunity to play along with the music of the great fairy tale writer on African kalimbas, Tibetan singing bowl and Russian bells, surrounded by atmospheric scenery of the Hoffmaniada cartoon

In addition, we developed a conceptual route with the exhibition map, a description of its spaces and tasks for the audience.

The route was implemented in the format of a gift set of postcards, which further revealed the concept of a journey to happiness.

Guests could shuffle the cards and go through the exhibition in their own order. Upon passing through all the spaces of the route, the guest put a special mark-seal meaning the completion of their journey to happiness.

An additional gift was a special Postcard with one of the works from the exhibition, which each guest could find on the route.