“Curating the Uncurated: Concealing to Reveal”
Moscow functions on a gradient of exposure operating through various mechanisms of revealing and concealing that are present on the level of the architectural element, the building, and the urban fabric. it is ultimately a constructed, meticulously choreographed "potemkin village." While the notion of the Potemkin implies a strategy of hiding readily manifested in the vertical plane of the facade, the negotiation between hiding and expression can provide the fodder for political and architectural subversion.
Historical research and theoretical exploration ultimately led to the creation of the “Museum of Censorship and Livejournal media headquarters” a hybrid gallery/publishing body. A space that exhibits censorship and propaganda and the expression and suppression of thoughts and information. It problematizes and challenges these paradoxical notions rather than condemns or condones them and explores the unexpected adjacencies and discrepancies that arise from the fitting of oppositional ideas and programs. It emphasizes the link between creative and informational circuits and networks of expression and strategically conceals and exposes its contents. By hybridizing gallery and publishing space, my project explores the linkages between the production of media, information, and art and their consumption or inability to be consumed. It is a space that doesn’t simply react against the fakness of the mask, political censorship and propoganda but attempts to breakdown and subvert them politically and architecturally.
