Golden Mask Award in the Hands of an SAS Student

Since 2021, Ioanna Meshchaninova, an SAS student, has worked as a curator of the project “Okhotinskie. Men's Kin,” which is a tableau video performance about the stories of men living in the villages of the Okhotinsky rural settlement in the Yaroslavl region. The premiere of the performance took place in the summer of 2023 at the Museum of the Fate of the Russian Village, in the village of Uchma, Yaroslavl region, and in June 2024 the project received the Russian National Theater Award “Golden Mask” in the category “Best Performance. Experiment.” We tell you more about Ioanna's experience.

“I have loved art, going to museums and theaters since childhood. For many years now I have been particularly interested in experimental practices in museums. Now, thanks to my own projects in the Cultural Studies major, I am able to study different types of art and take different approaches to exploring them.

Since I was a teenager, I worked in circles to create unique projects at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, and I also participated in a project to create an audio installation called “#Sakharovinversion” for the A. D. Sakharov Museum in Nizhny Novgorod. I worked on the audio installation together with the participants of the THEATRUM 2021 lab in Nizhny Novgorod. The event was dedicated to the interaction between museums and theaters,” said Ioanna.

In 2021, Ioanna curated the documentary performance “Okhotinskie. Male lineage.” The project received a grant from Vladimir Potanin's Charitable Foundation “Museum 4.0” in the category “Museum + Theater.”

“Thanks to the support of the fund, we were able to organize the performance in an ancient rural hut. The audience listens to excerpts from interviews with residents of the Okhotinsky rural settlement — and reflects on village life. The play can still be seen today.

For me, the project was an important and responsible endeavor. I communicated with the team, prepared reports, conducted business correspondence and participated in events on behalf of the museum — so I practiced stress resistance and patience. We made many decisions collectively, as well as collecting material for the performance and preparing the site. I thank the team, the staff of the Potanin Foundation and our heroes for their trust, without whose stories the performance would not have been possible,” Ioanna said.

A video report from the award ceremony can be viewed on Pervyy Kanal's website.