Somewhere nowhere

The exhibition in the gallery near the Fenice Theatre brings together quite different projects – the full “Monuments”, part of the “Planetarium”, new works from the “Colonies” series and two fresh videos – “Fireworks” and “Scenes” are shown. They are united into a single exhibition through the vision of the crumbling Russian outskirts as former bridgeheads from which the metropolis has retreated. Moreover, this retreat can take place both in the Moscow region or nearby provinces, and in remote north-eastern regions. It happens somewhere and nowhere, the distant and inevitable is repeated in the close and easily preventable.

The vision is controversial, but there is logic in it. For "Monuments" Tkachenko traveled through villages where brick ruins of churches were preserved, which did not have a protected status. He erected structures around them that look like Suprematist geometry in photographs. He took photographs, dismantled temporary structures and left, leaving the ruins as they were before his manipulations. On the one hand, this is about devastation, but on the other - about the fertilized soil on which Russian modernism grows. Inevitably intensifying devastation, of course - which leads to
to the retreat of the traditional Russian civilization of past centuries: for the sake of accelerated industrialization, it was consistently destroyed by the authorities. In the post-Soviet world, it turned out that successful agriculture does not require many people, for whom maintaining an acceptable infrastructure is too expensive. The Russian village is dying out,
and this process is inevitable. Usable land is cultivated by farms. Close to the cities
and the roads of the village and town are increasingly becoming summer cottages, the distant ones are gradually disappearing into the ground. The stone ruins of churches will never be restored again, there is no flock for them. All that remains is to melancholically admire them as they are - or to enhance the effect with artistic means, as Tkachenko does.

The series hangs along the long wall of the gallery – and on the opposite wall is the “Planetarium”. It is separated from the “Monuments” by a black curtain, probably to prevent the viewer from turning his head back and forth, comparing works from different years. The theme of the retreating colonizer appears more vividly in the “Planetarium”. Empty blue houses merge with the blue sky in abandoned cities that were built beyond the Arctic Circle during the Soviet era. Some “oil” stone settlements are still alive and thriving, some are not. In difficult places around the world, it is now common to work on a rotational basis – it is much cheaper.
As a result, abandoned typical neighborhoods stand as empty monuments to heroic and senseless attempts to inhabit an inhuman alien climate. Tkachenko lights up the windows of abandoned houses – so that they light up like constellations in cold space.

Another series, not yet finished, is represented by four photographs that look like geometric watercolors. It is called "Colony". These are palimpsests: superimposed views of houses made of standard concrete slabs frozen in permafrost. There is some logic in the repeating cells, but the brain does not grasp it - similar to how the structure of anthills, for example, is incomprehensible to an unprepared viewer. However, such abstraction can please the eye. It is always pleasant to know that human activity is based on calculation and rationality of a social nature - although they also lead to failures of mega-construction projects.

Historically, most of Tkachenko's projects required assistants and/or volunteers. Sometimes their number was in the dozens and required serious orchestration and direction. As a result, by emphasizing the poetics of interaction, Danila realized large-scale performances

in various regions of the country - in the Kaliningrad region, in Altai. These works were dedicated to historical memory, for their successful implementation it was important to involve as many participants as possible. This line of creativity was cut short by Danila's forced emigration from Russia.