The photographer, known to the Kazan audience for her exhibitions "Vulnerable", " Deity's Likeness" and "Future Dwelling" - about contemporary photography, its message and how new works appear.
Olga Michi is an artist and photographer, representative of the digital art direction, author of conceptual cinematographic projects. Her works touch upon a wide range of topics and are devoted to the problems of modern life and deep philosophical issues. For example, she is interested in the problem of small cultures in the conditions of globalization, intergenerational relationships, changes in values in the global world, loss of identity, world conflicts and their consequences, pollution of the world's oceans and outer space, the problem of using AI in artistic creation and much more.
Over the 12 years of her career, Olga has managed to work as a photo correspondent for TASS, realize the author's project "Extreme Photographer" as a TV reporter, create a number of large-scale art projects, and film several documentaries, which were awarded in Russia, the USA, Great Britain, Japan, Germany, Serbia, Bulgaria, Finland and the Czech Republic. Michi is also a member of the art group GrOM and co-founder of the Béton Center of Visual Culture, where she regularly curates various contemporary art projects.
GALA talked to the photographer about her work, the art of photography and inspiration.
- Did you always know you wanted to be a photographic artist? Where did your interest in creativity come from?
- Initially, my plans for life were quite different. I started practicing photography in a professional capacity 12 years ago, when I became interested in researching various rituals and cultures of small African communities. It was precisely because of this that I received an invitation from Vitaly Ignatenko, who was then General Director of ITAR-TASS. This was followed by cooperation with RT and VGTRK. In these projects, I mostly reflected the world as it is. But at some point this was not enough for me, and I felt the need to express my attitude to this world, and moreover to create my own, recognizable, artistic worlds. That's how I started working on the Vulnerable project in 2017. The filming lasted two years and took place in three countries: Ethiopia, Myanmar and Russia (Chukotka region).
- Tell us about your work: where have you exhibited, who have you collaborated with?
- The Vulnerable and Deity's Likeness series were published by the English-German publishing house TeNeues. The albums are available in 70 countries around the world. The series themselves include more than 200 works. Each series is a fully finished exhibition project.
In the project "Vulnerable" the viewer finds himself in the middle of a global problem of choice between the past and the future, separateness and unity, diversity and unification.
The project "Deity's Likeness" calls for a deeper exploration of this problem - to think about what humanity is guided by when choosing one or another turn on its path. After all, the nature of the decision is determined by a complex of reasons, in which not so much temporary circumstances or peculiarities of local etiquette are important, but rather stable basic virtues, fears and weaknesses associated with them, typical of every human being.
The project "Future Dwelling" by the art group GrOM offers a glimpse beyond the limits of modern everyday life to see how a particular choice of path can affect the shape of the probable future. Will humanity live in harmony with itself and the natural world, travel to unexplored corners of the universe in multiple dimensions, reach undiscovered underwater depths, or will it face a shortage of absorbed resources, jeopardize its existence and destroy its unique creative essence? The answer to this can only be given by the viewers themselves, who will not only have to place themselves in the shoes of the heroes of my works, but also choose between a variety of alternatives for the future in the real world.
I have been exhibited at many spaces of Russian state museums: the Hermitage Main Building, the State Russian Museum (Marble Palace), the multimedia space "Art Museum of Moscow", the Gallery of Contemporary Art of the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan, the Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts, the Novosibirsk Museum of Art and the State Cultural Center Pakgauzy in Nizhny Novgorod. Recently I have been working in co-authorship with Alexei and Artem Loginov, together with whom we formed the creative group GrOM.
- How and where did your first exhibition take place? Did you get what you expected from it?
- Speaking about artistic projects, the first major exhibition in Moscow took place in 2021, in June at the XII Moscow International Biennale of MAMM "Fashion and Style in Photography" curated by Olga Sviblova in the Manezh Central Exhibition Hall. The main avenue and a separate huge exhibition area were allocated for the project "Vulnerable", which allowed to show 119 large format works (167 x 80 cm). One of the art works became the face of the Biennale and was printed on a giant banner that hung on the building. All works after the Biennale were included in the MAMM collection. Literally two days after the opening of the Biennale, I presented the project at the Munich gallery Immagis Fine Art Photography (Germany). Then there were exhibitions in the State Museum of Oriental Art (Moscow), in the Hermitage (St. Petersburg) and so on. In total, more than 20 solo exhibitions at museum spaces over three years.
- Do the organizations themselves contact you about cooperation? If yes, how do they contact you?
- They usually apply directly, on recommendation, or contact my representative Maxim Koveshnikov. Sometimes they send letters to the address of Béton CVC. In general, it is not difficult to find me.
- How do you start a new work?
- From the idea. Many people believe that photography is the quickest way to create a work of art. In many cases, this is true, unless, of course, by "work" we mean something that doesn't require any mental effort, like amateur selfies or a tourist landscape. However, when it becomes necessary to create a truly significant masterpiece, the technical speed of capturing a photographic image takes a back seat to the need to conceptualize and prepare the content of the future work.
- Most valuable work you've ever done? Your favourite?
- I hope you're not talking about the price (laughs). I love all the works of my projects and keep the author's copies for myself in print runs. There is a story behind each of them, but I try to remain detached and impartial: having finished a project, I am already working on the preparation of the next one. In all seriousness, the prices for mine and individual works of the art group GrOM reach several tens of thousands of dollars. The price depends on the size of the print, the edition, the printing technique, the prestige of the collection that contains the same print, and the scale of the cultural resonance caused by the work.
- Top 3 best artists in Russia? Foreign?
- It depends on which time period we are talking about. Whether we're talking about those who are alive today or those who have already passed away, but who have left their significant mark on the history of world art. The top contemporaries are, of course, Ilya Kabakov, Eric Bulatov and Grisha Bruskin. Among foreign authors are Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer and Andreas Gursky. If we take the earlier period - Vladimir Tatlin, Kazimir Malevich and Vasily Kandinsky. From abroad, there are Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock.
- Which of the recent exhibitions have you personally been blown away by?
- Andrei Chezhin's exhibition "Button and Modernism" in our center. In this project the artist rethinks a huge cross-section of art history and creates his own inimitable homages using an ordinary stationery button. In this project Andrei acts as a creator, researcher and art historian at the same time. A terrific author with an amazing vision and sense of humor. I always look forward to his new series of works.
- Tell us more about your movie "In the Shadow of Big Trees". How did you realize this project?
- In 2013, during a visit to CAR, I met Louis Sarno, an American researcher of the Ba'Aka Pygmy traditions. Louis had lived among the Pygmies for many years and had become so deeply attached to them that he made the protection and preservation of their culture, customs and traditions his life's mission. We agreed with him that I would think about what I could do to help them and I would definitely come back with a solution. Two years later I flew in with a film crew and within 5 days in the absolute wilderness, not understanding the Pygmy language, we intuitively shot the entire movie. The movie caused a loud world resonance, won prestigious world film awards, entered the top rating of the best documentaries of 2016. The victory we are especially proud of is the victory at the International Documentary Film Festival of the International Committee of the Red Cross. During the film's worldwide distribution, we received offers to sell exclusive rights to the source material from HBO and BBC television companies. This was our first documentary, the success of which motivated us to produce the following films Missing girls, My friend Yeti, and Torn away. In February this year we are presenting the documentary "The Last Postmodernist" to a wide audience.
Author: Daria Malinovskaya
