Cages for exhibits, 2021

Installation, four cages with Perm State University museum exhibits  

At the heart of Perm State University, my alma mater, there is an open space for exhibitions of Perm University history museum. For the museum night, four сages one by one meter were installed on site. There was a cage with shards from archaeological excavations, a cage with palm leaves (as part of the planned cutting), a cage with a stuffed owl from the Zoology university museum, and a cage with one of the oldest books from the University’s Rare Book Museum. The functioning and financing of museums within the university are such that museums are not publicly available and not widely open even to university students: personally important knowledge is hard to find and should be looked for even at the educational institution.

A cage in general is about an obstacle, prohibition, but also about the possibility of contact and reducing the distance. A cage is about valuable and often dangerous contents. Placed at the university, visually contrasting with the architecture of one of the most beautiful buildings on campus, the cages might raise the question of the availability of knowledge in general. Made of poor rough materials, the cages might remind of the danger of barbaric treatment of knowledge/culture, and on the other hand, they might refer to the history of the first university in the Ural city.