On the verge of consciousness

St. Petersburg artists are trying to “talk” to the residents of a psychoneurological boarding school

In St. Petersburg, in the foyer of the theater-festival “Baltic House”, a joint exhibition of paintings by the Green Dog partnership of young artists and residents of psycho-neurological boarding school No. 3 in Peterhof opened. The exhibition was called “Dialogue”, and was organized by the charitable organization “Perspective”, with the help of which an art studio was created in the boarding school eight years ago. Of the one and a half thousand residents of the boarding school, people with various diagnoses and disorders, usually quite severe, about one hundred people go to the studio to study. And they constantly draw no more than forty.

“Different people come to our studio in the boarding school,” says artist and art studio teacher Olga Konysheva. --I have little interest in diagnoses; when they come to work, I do not perceive them as disabled, we work with them in a creative union. And creativity in general is a healing thing; a person opens his subconscious. And any way out is always healing. It’s impossible to say that people are recovering, that their diagnosis is being removed, but very positive changes are indeed taking place.”

For example, one of the authors presented at the exhibition was diagnosed with autism; when he started working, he practically did not talk to anyone. Now the young man himself began to speak. Recently, an absolutely remarkable incident occurred: a girl who had lived in a boarding school for many years began to draw, participated in various creative programs, and after a while she met a young man and got married. He is also disabled, they live in a boarding school, but they have a family, their own life. This is what she has dreamed of all her life. And it was painting classes, according to Ms. Konysheva, that helped the girl realize her dream.

The age of the authors from the psychoneurological boarding school is from 24 years to 40, mostly young people, the only “special” artist is 40 years old, the rest are not yet 30. Most of the inhabitants of the boarding school are the so-called unvisited, that is, people who were abandoned by their loved ones.

As young artists from the creative association “Green Dog” admit, it was not easy for them to enter into dialogue with “special” people. Although “Green Dog” has extensive experience in social creative actions: the artists carried out joint projects with children from orphanages and residents of night shelters. But this was the first time we worked with people with mental disorders. “I’ll be honest: at first I was scared and disgusted - the smells and sounds in this boarding school were unexpected,” says artist Anna Skorodumova. - But when you start working, all fear and hostility disappear - these are also people, they also create. And even if they cannot speak, walk poorly, even if their development has stopped at the age of three, they have something to say to the world, a lot of work is going on in their souls. And outside the boarding school, we also began to treat such people differently.”

Most of the paintings of the residents of the boarding school are non-objective, abstract paintings that are not of particular interest to art connoisseurs. But this, apparently, is the peculiarity of the perception of the world by “special” people. As experts note, it is very rarely possible to get such artists with mental illness to draw specific objects, much less living creatures. But the project is first and foremost social, and then artistic.

According to the director of the Perspective organization, Maria Ostrovskaya, such joint actions are primarily important for society. “Society actively does not want to see these people, it pushes them into reservations, separates them from the rest,” says Ms. Ostrovskaya. - But society needs this - how to breathe fresh air, how to observe the rules of hygiene, even if society, like a small child, does not want to do this. These “special” people exist nearby, even if we don’t want to see them. We can support them, and they can give us sincere warmth and love, extraordinary art and self-expression, unexpected reactions.”

Natalya SHKURENOK, St. Petersburg