“Stenografia”, Russia’s most important street-art festival, organised with support from the Gazprom Neft corporate social responsibility (CSR) “Home Towns” programme, will this year take place in eight of Russia’s regions.
Ekaterinburg was the start-point for this year’s Stenografia-2016 Festival where, in early July, street artists from Russia, Italy and Brazil set up more than 20 street-art installations. In late July creative teams will depart for Omsk, where they will take part in the “Omskovite Day” celebrations as well as decorating the city with graffiti. The Festival will subsequently move to Noyabrsk, Muravlenko, Orenburg, Khanty-Mansiysk and two other population centres in the Arctic Circle — Novy Port and Cape Kamenny. The three-month journey will end with the artists visiting St Petersburg where — without paint, and using only the interplay of light and shadow — several street-art installations will be set up, blending seamlessly with the city’s architecture.
Organisers selected uniquely composed teams of professional artists, whose experience, style and personal vision would best enhance the beauty of public spaces. Creative workshops, lectures, exhibitions and various underground youth initiatives will also be held for local residents.
Alexander Dybal, Member of the Management Board, Gazprom Neft, commented: “The Stenografia Festival is one of the most outstanding projects of Gazprom Neft’s CSR programme. Our company views street art as a vital element of the cultural process, and an integral part of modern life. We make considerable efforts to improve the visual appearance of typical and often unremarkable buildings, turning these into objects of art and, even, to some extent, into visual attractions. Where artists are working in a historical part of a city, their work has to be sensitively interwoven into the surrounding architectural environment. Conditions are different everywhere, but, overall, we are able to improve city aesthetics of and make the world around us more beautiful.”
“Stenografia” is an annual street-art event, bringing together leading graffiti and street artists in Russia and worldwide. The Festival was first held in Ekaterinburg in 2010. The Festival has, over the years, seen dozens of street-art installations and artworks created which have since become well known not just throughout Russia but also abroad, subsequently included in major catalogues of street art. In 2015, supported by the Gazprom Neft corporate social responsibility (CSR) “Home Towns Programme” the Festival has, for the first time, moved beyond the Sverdlovsk Oblast to take place in seven population centres in four regions throughout the country, leaving more than 50 stand-out art installations in its wake.
Stenografia 2016 — Festival schedule:
1–3 July — Ekaterinburg;
29–31 July — Omsk;
29–31 July — Noyabrsk;
2–4 August — Muravlenko;
26–28 August — Orenburg;
9–11 September — Khanty-Mansiysk;
16–18 September — Novy Port and Cape Kamenny settlements;
23–25 September (provisional date) — St Petersburg.
