Born in Perm. Photographer, organizer of exhibitions and cultural projects, CEO of the Locator Band project bureau.
Quotes
- Everything inspires me: cinema, dreams, sudden pickups, and people.
- I like a more hospitable culture.
- My dream is to have more locations in Perm which are cool, well-designed, infrastructural, where everyone can find a place for oneself.
- Society needs the beautiful and the high, which anyone wants to touch.
- I will always find with whom to organize something.
- One shaman once told me: «One can never shut up the creative fountain, you just need to change the cups more often. „ My fountain is flowing, and I recognize the same fountains in other people. We can together make a cocktail or a compote, and sometimes a bowl of soup.
My story
I am from a somehow juridical dynasty and received a legal education traditional for our family. As they say, nothing foreshadowed creative projects.
In 2006, I began to take photos, and at the same time I started leasing premises in the new Perm business center „Parus.“ Using my rank, I started running exhibitions here, because the space on the 14th floor was to no purpose at all. The first one was an exhibition of non-professional and young photographers. There, as starters, many stars of today's photo appeared. And so began my festival activity, which later turned into participation in Zhivaya Perm (Live Perm) and Belye Nochi (White Nights, these both as remarkable big annual festivals of Perm region), in the Diaghilev Festival with the project Diaghilev, Surprise Me. For me, the fold is significant, and then I also wanted to be a part of something large and prominent.
The project Tantsy Na Vysote (Dancing on the Top) appeared because we wanted to make an ideal party for ourselves, with perfect music, atmosphere, and audience. As a result, a mini-festival was born, which almost immediately became commercially successful. Within two years we have gathered in the project the entire dance community of Perm, both academic and experimental.
All this time I didn't stop taking pictures, and people often wrote: „Masha, your city is not the same as everyone is used to, make a guidebook.“ As a result, when I accumulated a considerable number of photos and social links, I put pictures on the map. It rocketed around the city in two months thanks to the equally spontaneous exhibition Eleven. The exhibition occurred quite by accident: during the Diaghilev Festival I saw how few photographs come out at the public, and they were so awesome. Almost overnight I managed to select photos and settle all the issues with the authors, to find a team and accommodation. The Eleven exhibition has been working for more than a month, and according to the results, we decided that all this material should be turned into a website. This is how Locator.Band bureau and the second guidebook appeared.
Before the New Year, we accidentally managed to receive two awards: the second place in the Territory Marketing nomination at the First National award in the field of place branding and marketing and the Perm Regional Ambassador award in the Publishing Project nomination. I was somewhat shocked: I am not an urbanist, but merely described the city in my own way... But, apparently, we got to the point of increasing love for the city and for studying it.
In Perm, there are not enough parks, squares, and sites for self-presentation. There are people, but places are few. If we had a hub like the Moscow „Flacon“ or „Artplay,“ then the creative business would immediately be on the upswing. By a Flacon, I mean a place with accountable rental rates, with support from government and large enterprises.
When one time there are next to none people at the event, and the next time half of Perm comes to the same party, it is a commonplace. Such rhythm is characteristic of any event project: it is impossible to keep people up all the time and regularly collect 500 people for events. On the other hand, if there is an exciting environment with a succession of cool newsworthy events, then people get used to going there. And habits are formed only by practice.
I was born in Perm, and I'm here at ease. I understand how many opportunities are here. I regard the drawbacks of the city as its possibilities, and not as a reason for moaning and for wearing sackcloth and ashes. If the need is, I will move to another place, but so far there is none. I live here consciously and freely.