In Five Minutes

Exhibition “In Five Minutes” has opened in Donetsk, presenting works of the local Zhuzhalka (Coal Slag) art group at the MEDICAL CENTER space on the premises of the Foundation “ISOLATION. Platform for Cultural Initiatives.”

The Zhuzhalka’s members are three amateur photographers Viktor Zasypkin, Viacheslav Sokolov, and Roman Yukhymchuk. The art group associates photography with coal slag, which is used in the everyday life, saying that both things are banal and devalued because of their abundance. For more than a year already, the group has been self-publishing Zhuzhalka magazine, which is dedicated to photography, and “In Five Minutes” is an attempt to translate its content into three-dimensional space.

The exhibition’s curator Viktoria Ivanova said: “I am interested in the Zhuzhalka’s approach to the use of photography in the art of narration. These boys take objects out of easily readable context, and, using them as syllables, create words, sentences, texts that prompt us to think in a certain way. And that includes more than just intellectual history, as viewers of these works get that the content relates to them as a part of society.”

“In Five Minutes” is a kind of tour of the town of Rzhavchyno (Rustytown). This “settlement” is a generic image of the industrialized parts of Donbas, with most pictures of it shot in Yenakiieve. Grey snapshots of factory chimneys and churches as well as colorful street scenery allow everyone to find a place to one’s liking in Rzhavchyno. Visual imagery supplements audio narration about the fictional town. It turns out that Rzhavchyno is an idyllic area where people have housing, social benefits and high salaries, are proud of the town’s steelworkers and its Institute for Social Research, headed by Academician Nichuvko.

An open Donbas brand fridge welcomes visitors to the Rzhavchyno exhibition hall. The fridge is covered in stickers of colorful Soviet cars. Zhuzhalka’s member Yukhymchuk explained: “A lot of people, my parents included, remember well Soviet prices of sausages and other food. It is a kind of food cult.  This fridge is an image of the starting point from which we all have come, and have not yet fully left it.”

Next to the fridge are pictures of sleeping bums who are “preserved” in three-liter jars full of bubbles. Apparently, happy residents of Rzhavchyno rest in this way. The walls are covered in texts on the theory of chaos and puzzles made of photos. Yukhymchuk admitted: “It is easy to take photos of places where one has lived for some time. Therefore, Donetsk is the best subject for me. In general, the camera is always with me, so I can go wherever I want to and take pictures. We are not professional photographers, we do it in our spare time. As for myself, I work as an economist.”

During the exhibition, the Zhuzhalka boys will prepare new issues of their self-published magazine. ISOLATION will host “Sovmast” project (name coming from the Russian for “cooperative workshop”), a descendant of Svomases (from the Russian for “free workshop”), free art workshops that existed in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. Zhuzhalka’s member Zasypkin said: “We will work on already shaped ideas in part, select photos, and typeset it. We have created a space for communication, where one can see our work or show their own creative discoveries.”

From Thursday to Sunday, anyone can come to the MEDICAL CENTER and work there. “We offer everyone to use our room for work, as it has the Internet, projector, and seating. Hopefully this sterile gallery space will transform into something dynamic,” Ivanova expected.

The In Five Minutes exhibition will run until March 17.