Story of PROEKT_FABRIKA in Moscow

Asya Filippova

The history of the center is quite interesting. I started to work as the director of the factory in a situation that was quite hard. The management of the factory could not decide if they should produce more paper or they should stop it because demand was descending. We did not even have money to pay the salary to workers so we definitely had to make the decision about the future. After a year I realized, that we were not using all the equipment and spaces of the factory effectively, so I decided to open an exhibition hall in one of the spare spaces. The first exhibition was presented in frames of first Moscow Bienale of Contemporary Art. This first exhibition hall was about 700 m², it was located on the second floor of one of the buildings and surprisingly this story of exhibition in an industrial space seemed to be interesting for many people. After the exhibition a lot of people started to come and they were asking me about the space to work. The first of them was Liliana Tupisiva, she decided to use one of our spaces called Aktovy Zal to start there a program of contemporary dance and documentaries. So that was the way - exhibition hall Aktovy Zal, then we opened another exhibition hall, then we started program of renovating studios for creative industries and then - couple years ago, we started to run this Artist in residency program. So now we can definitely say that this center appears to be a sustainable place for artists and creative industries.

The center is located in a factory for technical papers that is still working and this makes the center quite unique. Now it includes 2 exhibition halls and a theater where we present contemporary dance, contemporary theater, documentaries, cartoons and also Indie music. In addition there is residency for artist. The main exhibition hall is called Olivia. It is about 500 m², it´s quite huge space with high ceilings. 6 years ago there was a big machinery installed, called Olivia. It was delivered from France and our workers probably decided that if it is from France, it should be called Olivia. So it is kind of a legend here and it is probably the origin of the hall´s name. When I faced the economic situation of the factory, I came to the conclusion that we have to remove it. It was extremely beautiful but unfortunately nobody wanted to pay a penny for this beauty. Now the space is the biggest exhibition hall of the complex. 

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Asya Filippova

Asya Filippova

Director of PROEKT_FABRIKA in Moscow, Russia.

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