Viktoria Lomasko
Die Unsichtbaren und die Zornigen. Porträts aus einem anderen Russland
Viktoria Lomasko, Moskau, im Gespräch mit Mischa Gabowitsch, Potsdam
Rarely seen scenes from Russia, drawn with a quick yet precise stroke of the pencil: Viktoria Lomasko seeks out motifs for her graphic reportage in places that the state media and the commercial art world prefer to ignore: in a youth penitentiary where she gave drawing lessons, in conversations with women who were held as slaves in Moscow supermarkets for years; in parks where residents rebel against the inflationary construction of Orthodox churches; and of course at the innumerable protest marches sparked by the Duma elections of 2011.
Viktoria Lomasko’s graphic reportages are stingingly realistic, her stories unsparingly honest and – though they are often devastating – full of empathy and wit. She draws an unpretentious portrait of a country full of the invisible and the furious: those forgotten by the state and those who, unfazed by hardship, continue to fight for each other and for the society in which they live.
The discussion will take place in Russian. Translation into German will be provided.
Viktoria Lomasko was born in Serpukhov in 1978 and lives in Moscow today. She is a freelance graphic artist and author, and lectures on graphic reportage. As co-author of the courtroom reportage Forbidden Art she was nominated for the Kandinsky Prize in 2010. She co-curated two large exhibitions on graphic reportage, The Feminist Pencil and Drawing the Court, and her work was shown in numerous international solo and group exhibitions, including Drawing Protest (2014) at the Einstein Forum. Her book Other Russias, published in English in Thomas Campbell’s translation in 2017, was celebrated by the press. A German translation by Sandra Frimmel was published in March 2018.