Transformation 2026. How it went

TRANSFORMATION 2026. HOW IT WENT

Part I

Between a lot of work with different cities, more on that later, I found a moment to tell you what interesting things I came up with in Zheleznogorsk at the end of May.

MENTORING LOUNGE

What I am especially proud of are the participatory formats. For example, the mentoring lounge, a format where artists and other practitioners bring raw material and mentors give feedback that is useful rather than polite. Our discussion programme was hosted by Sergey Podustov, and judging by how the conversation never died down, it turned out substantial and funny, not a box-ticking exercise.

NETWORKING TERRACE

The networking terrace is a special joy for us. I finally stopped being afraid and did it. Thanks to our incredible Renata Vafina for building the programme and Tatasha Gorshkova for coordinating the education track.

How it worked. You get a wristband at the entrance. Yellow means resources and connections, you are looking for people. Red means you have an idea and are looking for a team. Blue means hands and experience, you are looking for a project. If you have all three, you are either a genius or you stole someone else's. Speed dating, switching tables, and at some point it stops being networking and becomes a contact zone in the most honest sense of the word. The format landed really well and I am very happy.

PAINT BATTLE

Another format, new for us, was the paint battle. A competitive canvas painting session against the clock, on a shared theme, with complications to keep it exciting. Art as a contact sport, at its best, by local artists. It was curious to watch, because you could immediately see whose style looked more confident. Of course, everyone did great.

DOODLE WORKSHOP

The main hit of my efforts was our doodle workshop on a prepared wall and on a trailer. This is pure soul. You draw over someone else's lines without knowing who started. People stood there for three hours, which for a modern person is a heroic feat, and it turned out that the most honest conversation about enrichment happened right here, without any clever words. Our artists had to keep an eye on it so the doodles did not grow into something more expressive, thanks to Andrey Gavrilov's team.

ILYA SLAK AND THE STAGE

Besides his workshop on making incredible and very beautiful assemblages at Teremok, Ilya Slak designed the entire stage, and it was great. Plastically rich, not overloaded, just enough to hold attention without distracting from the artists.

FESTIVAL TOURS

The theatrical tours ran every hour on festival day, and they were not a "look at this object" kind of tour but a full urban quest. Secret places you would never find without a guide, stories of local artists told in the first person, a spillway with a petal performance where people threw flowers into the water and watched them float away. We painted on city walls, and at some point the group would simply walk into a directed space or straight into a local artist's studio, unannounced, and it worked better than any manual.

Artyom Tomilov staged a promenade performance without actors and without a written text. The city itself became the drama, and Artyom seems to be the only director who saved on the troupe's fees without losing quality.

ART OBJECTS

Tolya Akue assembled Fragments of the Whole from the hands of strangers. KOSH came back with sticker bombing, the same stickers that caused a frenzy among the children in the park a year ago. Vladop and Rise485 painted walls that are now a city document rather than vandalism with a permit. Diana Buzueva printed badges on the spot, and it was a resounding success. Dan Subbotkin taught people to assemble clothes like a construction kit and built a very beautiful cosmic gothic tower along the way. Sasha Dorofeeva and Yulia Taiga made large installations at Teremok, which turned out uplifting.

Part II

MUSIC

In the evening, Elli na makovom pole and Direktor Vsego played the summer stage, and the crowd sang some songs in chorus. Then a closed party at Teremok with a DJ set by Alexander Bykanov, and there was no time for interviews, everyone was busy with important things.

THANK YOU

Thanks to the FORMA team, without you all of this would have stayed in Figma and in dreams.

Thanks to producer Katya Kassina, project manager Tasha Martus, technical director Andrey Gavrilov, coordinators Kirill Zyukov, Renata Vafina, Tasha Gorshkova, PR director Anna Zagorodnikova, communication designer Liza Klimova, and our client, Metalloinvest.

That is all from me. Thank you, dear participants, organisers, clients and, most importantly, residents of the city. We all worked hard, and it came out light and festive.