Pривет от Pитера!

kuš! is happy to report from the comics festival Boomfest in St. Petersburg. It is still on until October 16th, so if you happen to be there, do some boom boom boom!

kuš! took part in the festival with „The Last Match” exhibition, it can be seen in the Nobokov’s Museum – a great chance to get to know not only 283 illustrations in matchbox size, but also Nobokov’s butterfly collection and an exhibit by the Catalonian artist Miguel Gallardo. Gallardo’s exhibition derives from his relationship with his daughter who has autism and comics for them become part of their communication.

Here is a short animation introducing the world of Maria:

The festival’s biggest space was one of many St. Petersburg’s many places called Манеж. During the weekend three lovely Lamelos guys were making a wall painting there and during the nights they took care of the liveliness at Boomfest’s partys. By the way, in the bar Mishka it revealed that the Russian artist Edik Katykhin is most probably the lost brother or at least a cousin of Lamelos.

 

Манеж was home for the exhibition of Julie Doucet as well as the Le Monde diplomatique (France) collection, featuring artists Joe Dog, Juhyun Choi, Mazen Kerbaj, Mad Meg and others.

Another show called „One day in history” succeeded in both showing works of interesting Russian illustrators (kuš! especially liked  Тимофей Яржомбек, Родион Китаев, Дарья Рычкова) and in the same time the exhibition shed light on important historical facts like Lenin’s death, the invention of the bra, prohibition of alcohol in the USSR etc.  Downstairs of the same gallery there is a comics reportage by V.Lomasko and A.Nikolajev from the court process against the freedom of contemporary art. Exciting (and sad) to follow.

 

Among other exhibitions, Boomfest was celebrating it's 5 years anniversary this year, in honor of that there was an exhibition in the garden with the theme „Birth” – as part of that also a work by our Maija Līduma.

 

There was a workshop and lecture program at the festival as well, but kuš! happened to find itself in the unofficial academic program – we took part in the class on comics for the graphic design students at the Art and Industry Academy (which used to carry the name of the Latvian-born sculptor Vera Muhina).

Many thanks to Dima, Polina, Nastja, Anja and all the the organizators and helpers of the festival as well as to the Latvian Consulate in St.Petersburg for their support.