“Dried - Believe” traveling exhibition of the K. A. Timiryazev Biological Museum and the International Memorial

In the Perm Art Gallery opens a traveling exhibition of the Biological Museum. K. A. Timiryazev and the International Memorial "Dried - Believe." The exposition is dedicated to the history of the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp and is a combination of archival documents, scientific research and theater scenography. People who find themselves in conditions of cruel repression are told from an unexpected angle - through a sheet of herbarium, which acts as a scientific source, a symbol of memory, an archival document, a way to feel the fragility of life.

Dry plants collected by the botanist Vladimir Vekhov in the 1960s near the destroyed camp huts of mainland logging missions are also special settlers, witnesses of a terrible past. Their appearance thousands of kilometers from their usual places of growth can only be associated with anthropogenic drift. Grass seeds could be carried on clothing and broken shoes of prisoners who survived a long stage. There are no more grasses, as well as people left lying in the forest without graves and names. But there are sheets of herbarium - documents confirming that forced migrants - people and herbs - were. Dry plants become a subtle way to remember events and people, help to talk on difficult topics and overcome them.

At the exhibition, visitors will see herbaria and stories related to them: carnations from the runway of the Moscow airfield; a green carpet of herbs at the site of the Norilg’s women’s unit; stalks suspended upside down from the collections of a naturalist who spied on the Decembrists and Pushkin; sheets of Solovetsky prisoners, living human stories. The materials of the exhibition are supplemented by the works of contemporary artists Andrei Kuzkin (Traces, 2006–2007) and Ivan Schukin (Morning. Day. Evening, 2017).

A traveling exhibition in every city grows with local materials. In Perm, it contains Perm stories - materials about special migrants who fell into the Perm Territory during the years of repression. Among them are the recollections of the inhabitants of Kyn, most of which were included in the book of local historian Sergey Grinkevich “Kyn is the Golden Don”, stories about the biologist Alexander Genkel and ethnographer Pavel Bogoslovsky, archival documents on the construction of the Vishera Boom Plant and other materials. These stories will be supplemented by herbaria from the Perm University funds.

The organization of the exhibition space uses theatrical techniques: a prison door, prisoner’s belongings, forest stumps, stones and branches, a camp tower, an iron train with a collage of archive photos, military photographs, types of overgrown forest felling, human silhouettes and faces, names on the log of a hut, sounds of camp life, a plywood case as a symbol of return. Thus, the exhibition becomes a sensual way of thinking on the topics of memory, violence, fragility of life and evidence.

The exhibition for spectators will work from March 6 to April 26, 2020. Audience 12+

The author and curator of the exhibition: Nadezhda Pantyulina, senior researcher at the State Biological Museum. K. A. Timiryazev

Artist: Petr Pasternak

Project website: www.zasushennye.ru.

The project was created with a grant from the Vladimir Potanin Charitable Foundation, in 2017 he won the competition “A Changing Museum in a Changing World” in 2017, received a diploma of the best implemented project in 2019 and a special nomination from the jury of the International Festival “Intermuseum-2019” for a special approach to creating exhibitions.

The exhibition "Dried - Believe" in Perm was prepared with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Perm Territory.

In preparing the project, photo and archival documents were used:

Central Archive of the FSB of Russia,
National Archives of the Republic of Karelia,
National Museum of the Republic of Karelia,
State Archive of the Russian Federation,
State Public Historical Library of Russia,
State National Library,
Russian State Library,
Libraries of the Faculty of Biology, MV Lomonosov Moscow University, Department of Higher Plants, Faculty of Biology, MV Lomonosov Moscow State University,
Administration of the White Sea-Baltic Canal,
Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History,
Archive and Museum of the International Historical and Educational
Memorial Charity and Human Rights Society,
Archive at the Information Center at the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Karelia,
State Archives of the Vologda Oblast,
Museum and Exhibition Complex of the Museum of Norilsk
Helsinki National Archives,
archives of Irina Galkova, Simon Shnol, Sergey Demichev, Nikolai Vekhov, Ksenia Kosobokova;
Archival department of the Krasnovishersky municipal district;
State Archive of Perm Krai

Herbaria involved in the project:
State Biological Museum. K. A. Timiryazev,
Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov,
Main Botanical Garden named after N.V. Tsitsin RAS,
Botanical Institute named after V.L. Komarov RAS,
Museum and Exhibition Complex "Museum of Norilsk",
Voronezh State University named after Professor B. M. Kozo-Polyansky,
Memorial International Historical, Educational, Charitable and Human Rights Society ”,
private collection of the botanist and local historian Marina Trifonova,
Perm State National Research University

Thank you for helping Perm:
Elena Efimik, Olga Safroshenko, Sergey Grinkevich, Alexey Papulov, Maria Romashova, Konstantin Ostaltsov, Tatyana Antipin, Olga Vologin, Svetlana Karavaev, Sergey Shumikhin, Zhanna Nadymova