Rain children

They draw, write poetry, sculpt - so autists communicate with the world from which nature closed them

"Still life". Alexey Yelkin /Illustration: GOU SPO Technological College No. 21

The exhibition hall in Izmailovo presents decorative and applied products-wall plates, circles, vases, drawings, tapestries-performed by students and graduates of the technological college No. 21. This is the only educational institution in Moscow, where they teach the art craft of young people (the age of students-from 18 to 27 years) with the features of mental and mental development-autistic. Here they get professional skills in the pottery, carpentry, sewing and artistic and polygraphic workshops.

"Summer". Alexey Yelkin

Outsiderist

The name "outsider-art" was invented by the artist Veronika Pavlenko, who has been working with children suffering from autism for many years. What is autism, a wide audience found out about 25 years ago from the famous Barry Levinson’s film “The Rain Man” with Dustin Hoffman in the title role, and already in our time - from the documentary of Lyubov Anton here is nearby. Before that, few knew about them, as if there were no. In fact, according to official statistics, every 88th child in the world suffers from autism, and in boys such states are noted about four times more often than in girls. “Usually this serious diagnosis is made to children at the very early age,” says Veronica. - Parents bring children to the center of medical pedagogy, where experts try to help them - “pull” from the disease. However, those who manage to cope with autism are units, and what to do to the rest? So the college appeared, whose task is to give the guys a profession. ”

"Pushkin on the Christmas tree." Valentin Koblenz	Kolya Filippov likes to draw people and always makes signatures to his work

Skorboria

Alexey Yelkin is one of Veronika Pavlenko's favorite students, who has been working with autists for many years
Andrei Demin treats his drawings very seriously, does not like it when he is corrected
"Portrait of the wife of the field of Cesanne." Andrey Demin /Illustration: GOU SPO Technological College No. 21

Autist is an unusual person. He lives in his closed inner world, which sometimes breaks out. One, for example, can read fragments of some books from memory with whole pages, the other endlessly imitates the voices of people ...

“I have two wonderful students whom I especially love,” says Veronika Pavlenko. - This is Lesha Yelkin, his drawings, by the way, were exhibited even in the UK, and Andrei Demin. The first few over twenty, the second closer to thirty. Both are classic autists. In general, everyone who comes to us is sure to draw, even if they don’t want to at first, I always know for sure that they will draw! But everyone has a different level of talent. Lesha and Andrey have special talent. The works of Andrei Demin are deep and professional, he is very serious about his drawings and does not like when he is corrected. Andrei always draws on assignment and treats this precisely as work, for example, he does not want to draw at home. And for Lesha Yelkin, drawing is a natural process, part of life. As soon as he sees pencils, he immediately grabs them and begins to draw. Once I saw my picture on my wall in my frame, I looked at it for a long time and inquisitively and realized that I had not been in it at one time. And when I left the room, I took out the picture from the frame and began to quickly finish it, and with such passion that almost to the holes ... He has some kind of internal connection with the drawings, while, despite the seeming chaos, he can always explain what exactly he drew. Once we launched three hundred drawings on the screen and gave him a microphone, and Lesha each of the drawings called and said that it was on them. He has such a word “hacking pan”, it is from the cartoon “Bremen musicians”: “If a sparrow is close, we are preparing a gun ...” This is a snack is a beloved hero of his drawings ... ”

A simple -minded life

In Russia, for people over 18 years of age there is no such diagnosis as autistic, but in Ukraine, for example, there is. Legally, the condition of these children is designated as incapacity. And if in other countries there are different gradations of incapacity, then in Russia this also does not. If the child’s child is dying, then he does not have the right to inherit, his apartment is taken by the state, and the person himself goes to a special boarding school. Autists cannot be alone. It is necessary that someone constantly watch them. In the West there are developed state programs that help these people. For example, volunteers from Germany, who were engaged with children, helped them work in workshops came to college. In Germany, for this trip to Moscow, volunteers received not only money, but also special social benefits.

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Autist is an unusual person. He lives in his closed inner world, which sometimes breaks out

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The 21st college was created as an attempt to socialize autistic. But what's next? The Moscow Education Department requires the college to release students and gain new ones - but there is actually nowhere to release them! Therefore, Veronica Pavlenko had the idea of ​​the creative workshop of “Nika” as a kind of continuation of study-work. But so far only a few people can study in the studio, Veronica cannot pay for their work, and this is work, a professional business - products could well be sold. “I first met our students 15 years ago,” says Tamara Lavrentiev, the artistic director of the pottery workshop. -They were only seven to ten years old, and classes had more therapeutic significance than art. But even then I saw in their works a special artistic value. They innocently create their own world: objects and people in the picture do not obscure each other. Everything that is depicted is equally important for the artist, so he tries not to block one image with another; It does not use nature, but draws “as he knows” using an open local color or a simple contour pattern. Naive art is distinguished by marginal directness and ingenuousness. Therefore, even then I had the idea that I need to look for some application of the creativity of the guys ... "

About Asya

Asya Klimanova possessed many talents: she not only painted, but also wrote poetry

Asya Klimanova died ten days after her 17th birthday. She stopped talking at three years old. She spoke only in writing and then with great difficulty. And suddenly somehow unexpectedly for everyone, and primarily for her parents, Asya began to write poetry. “Poems come themselves, they only need to be carried away,” she determined her inner ear. Asya loved music, and many of her poems were born precisely as texts for songs. Her favorite poet was Emily Dikinson. Asya also wrote a story about herself, but as if on behalf of her brother, from him you can understand a lot about the girl’s inner world: “Hello. We have recently been set the Internet, so I do not know how to write in it at all. I beg you to forgive, if something wrong. I want to tell about my sister Anna (Asya changed her name. - The New Times). She is 13 years old, she could not study in any school, sits at home, or rather, lies all day under a sleeping bag with flowers. She is an autistic, although she, in my opinion, is not an autistic. To myself, I call her Anna, not Anya, she is too serious. She is not my native, but consolidated. Our parents gathered two years ago, and since then I know Anna. I have no more sisters more, so I thought right away that it was necessary to somehow communicate with her. You will say what an idiot, because the autistic does not need to communicate. Then this is probably not about my sister. When we met, she was ten, and she learned to write with someone else's help. With her, you need to sit down, take her hand and help to press the handle to the paper, then she began to write, quite quickly and vigilantly. Only then she almost did it with everyone, not like now. It's bad now. I forgot to say that Anna says nothing ... "

"Kryukov Canal." Asya Klimanova

ASI Klimanova's poem

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My bad body is no absurd

What was clinging to me, what are you doing here with me

What was clung to the soul like on the cornice of the nest

What was dissolved in the darkness

The river bank is frozen, but the pole in depth goes

The boat slides through the water, but does not see the bottom

Closer and closer the shore where the forest without snow

Froze and waits. And soon my birthday.

So, soon to be born for the fifteenth time

In cold and mud, in dying silence

How, pushing away, to be on that shore

Illustrations: GOU SPO Technological College No. 21

Photo: Veronika Pavlenko, Natalia Kharlamova