GORODETS & MOSHENKA
Niko Hafkenscheid & Valentina Stepanova
A presentation of workspacebrussels
In the frame of Working Title Festival
In two installations Niko Hafkenscheid and Valentina Stepanova investigate the contemporary Russian landscape. Gorodets is an archaeological inquiry into the disappearance of thousands of villages in the centuries-old backlands of Russia. The project collects images and conversations in an attempt to re-construct a reality no longer inhabited by humans, where the camera works as a lonely, posthumous eyewitness. Moshenka focuses on the inhabitants of the village of Moshenka, who try to give life to the dilapidated cultural centre. They witness a rural Russia in transformation, between forgotten traditions and post-war trauma.
NIKO HAFKENSCHEID AND VALENTINA STEPANOVA work together as an artistic duo and focus on new forms of documentary. They are fascinated by the twilight zone where fiction and reality meet. Next to Gorodets and Moshenka, they also created the performance Fondamenta degli incurabili that was presented during the opening weekend of the Venice Biennial 2017, a collaboration with local city painters in Venice that traces back Joseph Brodsky’s steps through the Italian city. Their joint work is co-produced and shown by workspacebrussels, Argos, KAAP and nona.
GORODETS: Creation and production: Valentina Stepanova & Niko Hafkenscheid – Co-production: workspacebrussels – Supported by: the Flemish Community Commission (VGC), IDFA Doclab Academy // MOSHENKA: Creation and production: Niko Hakenscheid & Valentina Stepanova – Co-production: workspacebrussels / Life Long Burning (Culture Programme of the EU), Argos Centre for Art and Media, Territoria Moscow – Supported by: the Flemish Community Commission (VGC)
More info: www.workspacebrussels.be