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We are thrilled to announce that the artists selected to represent Russia at the 2022 Venice Biennale of contemporary art are Kirill Savchenkov and Alexandra Sukhareva. Their project is curated by Raimundas Malašauskas.

The Milk of Dreams is the title of the 2022 Venice Biennale. This name is borrowed from a book by Leonora Carrington in which, according to the Curator of the 59th International Art Exhibition Cecilia Alemani, “the surrealist artist describes a magical world where life is constantly re-envisioned through the prism of the imagination, and where everyone can change, be transformed, become something and someone else.” 

“This exhibition is grounded in many conversations with artists which took place over the past months. The questions that keep emerging seem to capture this moment in history, when the very survival of the species is threatened, but also to sum up doubts that pervade the sciences, arts, and myths of our time. How is the definition of the human changing? What constitutes life, and what differentiates animals, plants, humans, and non-humans? What are our responsibilities towards the planet, other people, and the other organisms we live with? And what would life and the Earth look like without us?”

Raimundas Malašauskas on the Russian Pavilion project:
“Choreographed as a scene of gestures, Kirill Savchenkov’s and Alexandra Sukhareva’s presentation in the 59th Venice Biennale is an attempt to address the complexity of bodily, material and technological times. It evokes a transition from one state to another one, a twisted flow between future and past, a suspended division between dead and alive (and AI), day and night. Sliding between languages and representations, pausing on the most recent social memory, freezing in anticipation of things unforeseen, preparing for tomorrow — be it catastrophic or bright, or both.”