Video Art laboratory

"Sochi Video Art Lab" as part of the Sochi Winter International Arts Festival

"Sochi Video Art Lab" is an educational project specifically designed for Sochi residents to promote video as an artistic practice. Since 2018, the Lab has been held annually, as part of the Winter International Arts Festival. So has the video art exhibition Echo Eco, which has been part of the festival for 11 years and has actively promoted video art among Sochi audiences.

The lab consists of a series of lectures in which theory and practice are combined together. Over the course of 10 days, participants study the basic stages in the history of video art and familiarize themselves with the works of the most famous video artists. This knowledge is used to help each participant develop their own creative approach and produce their own video work. The results of the course are shown at the final exhibition on the final days of the festival in the Winter Theatre.

The lab is free and open to the public. Its structure makes it possible to get to know the principles of contemporary art without prior knowledge. At the same time, people who are not very familiar with the technological side of video production can learn the basic techniques to make their own works.

Because of the large number of applicants, from its second year, the Lab is divided into two groups, and the composition of each is determined by the level of knowledge of the participants.

The success of the last three editions of the Lab has helped to position Sochi as one of the major centres of video art in Russia. And from this year it has been included into the RAAN archive of contemporary art. No less importantly, in a relatively short period of time the Lab has created a community of people in Sochi who are actively interested in the production and exhibition of video art, working after the closure of the Festival, throughout the year.