Idea, Freedom, Forward, Hope, Joy, Ideal, Future — in the project of young artist Michael Zaikanov are the names of the real centers of population, situated around all Russian territory. It figure in the middle of the geographic map contours on exhibition’s canvas, and in the address line of returned-back letters that was sent by the artist to imagined citizens of these places. However, not only kilometer distance is behind these sonorous names, but also the fundamental concepts that make up a global picture and aspiration of any human. At first sight, these concepts, simple as ABC and steady as childhood-learned «good and bad», as a matter of fact turn out movable constructs, predisposed to discrepancy. Its content changes depending on person, context or ideology. Its sense are formed on the edge between the real and imaginary — in the space between the real map of Russia restricted to abstract lines and existent letters that didn’t find the recipient, which confirm the existence of these places and at the same time turn it into the perfect reference points, like described by Sir Thomas More Utopia island that is the same way looming on the horizon of the real and imaginary.
Elena Yaichnikova
«Idea, Freedom, Go, Hope, Joy, Ideal Future» — in the project of a young artist Michael Zaikanov — names of real Russian settlements. At first sight simple as «two and two make four» and clear «what is good, what is bad,» we learned in childhood, these concepts are actually the moving structures, whose content varies depending on the person, the context or the idea.
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