Artists with autism and other developmental features have created a collection of souvenirs for the Pushkin Museum

The Pushkin Museum to them. A.S. Pushkin, with the participation of the Life Path foundation and the Special Ceramics at VDNH workshop, presents a limited collection of souvenirs made by people with autism and other developmental features. The release of the new souvenir line is timed to April 2, the World Autism Awareness Day.

Many artists like to paint in the museum. Every Monday at the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin can be met by students of art universities and studios making sketches in various halls. Artists with autism and other developmental features from the Special Ceramics workshop during their studies at the Pushkin Museum created works based on works of art from the Ancient World and Byzantium, the Trojan treasure and Coptic fabrics, paintings by old masters and impressionists. Based on these sketches, a collection of souvenirs was developed, which will go on sale on April 2, the International Day of Attracting Attention to the Autism Problem. The limited range of souvenirs includes canvas bags, handmade ceramic vases and crockery with drawings using the “decal” technique. Thanks to a joint project, artists with disabilities got the opportunity to collaborate with the museum. Everyone who has bought an item from the collection will thereby assist the workshop.

The project of the Pushkin Museum involves the work of Andrei Pashkov, Nikolai Filippov, Irina Skrobova, Vera Koloskova and Elena Trubikhina. Project curators: Evgenia Kiseleva, Julia Lipes, Maria Koroleva. Artistic project managers: Alexei Karaulov, Anastasia Sorotokina. The video by Vika Lobanova and Olya Chukovskaya “I really like to paint on Mondays” tells about how artists work in the museum. Kirill Tikhonov and Vladimir Shnirman also participated in the filming of the film.

The Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin annually supports the International Day of drawing attention to the problem of autism, conducts excursions, lectures and other events. The museum has extensive experience working with visitors with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Since 2006, the Museyon Center for Aesthetic Education of Children and Youth has been operating in the museum, now headed by Olga Morozova, candidate of art history. For more than 12 years, the artist and art therapist Maria Dreznina has been conducting classes at the Pushkin Museum. Since 2015, together with the Exit Charitable Fund in the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin implemented the program "Autism. Friendly environment ”, in the framework of which briefings are held for museum staff and classes for wards of the foundation. Since 2016, as part of the Accessible Museum program, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts A.S. Pushkin launched new programs for visitors with special needs and released the first map of the sensory safety of museum space in Russia.

Evgenia Kiseleva, project curator, head of the inclusive programs department of the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin:

For a little over a year, artists from the Special Ceramics workshop came to Pushkinsky to watch art and paint. Some of them have favorite rooms and themes. Someone inscribes their portrait in each work, someone changes the scale of the figures in the picture depending on the importance of the character, and each has a very interesting vision and style. With this project we want to remind you that each person has his own view on a work of art and in a special way to express this view.

Vera Shengelia, Trustee of the Life Path Foundation:

For our foundation, for the artists of our workshop “Special Ceramics”, a collaboration with the Pushkin Museum is like flying into space. I can imagine how our artists with autism - Kolya or Andrey, or Verochka, who has Down syndrome - tell their friends that their works are sold at the Pushkin Museum - incredibly. But the most important thing is that this is still a very important step for society as a whole. This is an opportunity to see life in all its diversity, to make sure that people are different, that not our diagnoses are important, but our dreams, our talents and our features.

The collection will go on sale on April 2. You can purchase products in the gift shops of the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin.