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Scenography: Julian Barnes' The Noise of time (2023)

The staging of Julian Barnes’ novel, concerning the biography of Dmitri Shostakovich.

The scenography was found through improvisation rehearsals. From a wide scope of objects, there were gradually fewer and fewer of them left. Most of the scenography concerns materials and objects that the artists use in contemporary Russia, where anti-war statements are brutally repressed.

For me, Shostakovich’s story was inextricably linked to the current war. The glass balls were a reference to Sergei Filenko’s action. The matchboxes were a reference to the music of Sasha Skochilenko. An eternal stool for performances in childhood. The white dove of peace. Flowers (though dead) and candelabras for artists who fit into the system and feel comfortable in it.

Context

In June 2022, carpenter Sergei Filenko scattered 324 glass balls in front of the judge in Petrozavodsk court – according to the number of children killed in Ukraine. He was fined for “discrediting the army” (for anti-war statements on social networks). Later left Russia. Photo: Victor Fedorov (RFE/RL)

Musician and artist Sasha Skochilenko was detained in April 2022 for replacing price tags with stickers with anti-war inscriptions. She was sentenced to 7 years in prison.

From letters written by Sasha from the detention center: “Any musical instruments and even solfeggio textbooks are forbidden here. So I play on matchboxes, bars, tin cans, on my own body and on tables, and sometimes I sing in the yard.”

She was released in Ankara on 1 August 2024 as part of a complex international exchange of prisoners.