Mikhail Tolmachev
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Подвиг/Exploit

Two-channel video installation, synchronized, 29:00, color, soundIn 2020, artists from the Grekov Studio of Military Artists -- Russia's primary state institution for battle painting -- created a monumental diorama for the Airborne Forces Museum in Ryazan. It reconstructs the Battle for Height 776 in Chechnya (2000), where a company of paratroopers was surrounded and killed.  

This diorama is the starting point for the video installation Podvig/Exploit, which takes apart the mechanics by which a modern heroic myth of Russian military sacrifice is built. Focusing on craft rather than ideology, the camera follows the artists' mundane labor as they stage the battle scene. Alongside it runs a reenactment of a visit to the museum. The original tour was covertly recorded by an actor whose task was to engage the guide in a conversation about what actually happened in Chechnya. Using this recording, playwright Natalia Zaitseva developed a score, which was staged inside the very studio where the diorama had been create.