END OF RESIDENCY WEBZINE

Maria Kumina

I am Maria, an interdisciplinary curator and international lawyer, based in Moscow. I am interested in projects related to new media and technological mediation, speculative and sustainable design (food, garments), interconnectedness/interventions of artists into institutions and business, alternative economic models. I am also researching new interpretations of Eurasian and post-soviet discourse and connections between histories and places that seem at first glance too distant in time and space.
Currently I study Media and Technology Art at Rodchenko Art School in Moscow, work at the State Tretyakov Gallery on contemporary art projects and occasionally consult international businesses as a corporate lawyer. I also do some pro bono for artists on their contracts and advise them in case legal issues become a subject of their art practice.

During the residency I plan to develop INSIDE OUT - a series of workshops, talks, and a guide for creatives that show the inside of the routine (contracts, marketing, psychological issues, financial planning, etc.) that creatives face in their daily practice, in order to reveal the way to overcome bureaucratic processes, demystify and decode them and imagine alternatives.

My website is in progress;), so here are some links to separate projects:

Inside Out (first iteration) http://insideoutart.ru

Idle Encounters http://disconnect.tilda.ws/draft - an intervention on labour and leisure at the Tretyakov Gallery

Open Laboratory https://openlab.team
a self-managed community of non-professional media art mediators at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Art.

- a moment of realisation, change and/or disruption
$$$$$$ the funding of my project got cancelled, then some artists said they did not want to do anything for free if an institution with money was involved, and eventually the project was temporarily shut down due to new COVID restrictions… I realized I need to dismantle the economy of the project, make the invisible financial processes visible by turning the project inside out and centring it around the economic relations that are forming it &&&&&
-a moment of connection
&&&&& when I learnt about other participants’ projects, their attitudes to work/life/being together/vulnerability )))))))))
- any tools / methods / resources to share
((((((((( your local context is important – before talking about the core of the project, ground it in the context ?????
- a question you are left with
?????? do you have to be radical in your practice to innovate and bring change !!!!!!
- something you will carry forward
=====all things that I did not have enough time to do during the residency: check links and books suggested by the team, residents and instructors, revisit my notes and make some more notes^^, and deeper connect with other participants and their practices>>>>>>>>>