The first light performance ‘Not Dark’ took place on 21 December 2012. The project was realized by Cultural Transit Fund in association with Ural branch of National Center of Contemporary Art.
Project team:
manager and curator John Bocharov
technical director Anatoly Kaptur
project administrator Evgeniya Nikitina
PR of the project Kseniya Salnikova, Polina Borodina

11 artists and 2 partner organizations took part in the project:
Natalya Khokhonova
Sergey Laushkin
Elena Lazarenko
Max Sudhues
Sasha Saltanova
Timofey Radya
Alexey Shevchuk and Evgeniy Kormiltsev
Pavel Pogudin
Dasha Dyachkova
Yaroslav Karmanov
Metenkov Museum
High School of Image and Style
15 light installations in the central part of the city.

The festival is one of the first attempts at positioning ‘play with light’ in public space of Yekaterinburg. Max Sudhues, an experienced Berlin artist, alongside with Natalya Khokhonova and Sergey Laushkin, well-heeled local project participants and famous Timofey Radya were the avant-garde of the festival. But there were also people who have only just begun working with light in the city space.

Going deeper into the idea of the event, let’s repeat: it was a chamber festival, but in the city space we organized ‘light spots’, bright flashes on the map that formed the route for the night. It is interesting to note that some installations coincided: ‘Summer’s Coming’ by Natalya Khokhonova and ‘Lamp Shades’ by Timofey Radya, Yaroslav Karmanov’s projection and its opposite in technical terms projection of Evgeniy Kormiltsev and Alexey Shevchuk, film development in Metenkov Museum and ‘Diffusion’ by Elena Lazarenko at the Federal Modern Arts Centre, a story of an unusual porch by Dasha Dyachkova and story of a yard of Malyshev str 40 by Elena Lazarenko, Pavel Pogudin in the Checkist Town (Translator’s note: area of the city), followed classical storyline. I’d also like to note installations of Maks Zudus, Sasha Saltanova and Sergey Laushkin, who have all submitted very different artworks.