It all started when we organized a theater studio in 2000, after a while we opened an art studio and music classes. Later we just combined them into an art program.

First we had the ideas, then we found the money and people, who were ready to realize these ideas. All of our studios are unique, and were specially created by someone.

People pick what interests them, which studio to choose. People in the nursing home don`t have a lot of opportunities, that is why they are highly-motivated to create art and spend a lot of energy to change themselves. It is incredible. I don`t see such qualities in usual people. A usual person thinks for a long time about whether to change something in life, if they need to change themselves. And art itself requires the changes in a person. That is why there are so many creative and talented people who are open to change here.

We don`t do art therapy – in the environment of an asylum, where a lot of people live, there is no possibility to do it. In our studios, we use the benefits of art as a support. But art itself is therapeutic, the most important thing is for the message of the art piece to reach the viewer. The signals that people living in the nursing home transmit are very powerful. When taking in those signals, watching them, working with them as with equal partners, backward communication occurs. And then there is the question – Maybe everything is vice versa? Maybe it is therapy for us?

People are looking for self-realization because they want to communicate with other people, with the world, they want to tell about themselves. Here every person has a very strong position of who they are, and the language of art allows everyone to express their voice. For example, those whose ability to speak is not developed, or they can`t speak very well, can get information across by other means. Our job is to make sure their message reaches people. To organize exhibitions or a theater project that would have recognition, would be acknowledged.

The possibility to speak about yourself by means of art helps them to become more open, calm, secure, they can cope with a lot of difficulties more easily.

The expression that art is beyond all boundaries ceases to be a metaphor here, in the nursing home. It literally goes beyond all the boundaries – we have exhibitions and theater performances not only in St. Petersburg, but also in Europe. And, together with our guys, we overcome all the internal barriers. We are all equals. When you overcome yet another fear, it becomes easier for you to live, you go to another level. We overcome this total isolation that they were initially condemned to. But nothing would happen here if they didn`t have such brilliant talent and if their art pieces weren`t so powerful. They are amazingly talented people with a very strong and bright message to send.

Those who live in the nursing home are often sad and often ask themselves very dramatic questions.

Art helps people to live through some moments, to rethink something. Taking part in a theater piece you do not play the part, you live through it, and it stops being so traumatic to you. It is like you share the experience with the character. It was very interesting when we were working on the Hamlet theme with Elgar – he chose it himself, it was the most crucial topic for him. Elgar can`t read, he learnt the monologue “To be or not to be” by ear and I was reading it to him. He told me in the very beginning that it is a monologue about suicide. But we worked with the character this way: Prince Hamlet is your consultant, he chose death, but you can make another decision and rewrite the play in your own manner. Elgar has changed the plot and changed his life in that moment. In this sense art has absolutely wide possibilities.

For us it is very important to find a subject that person is ready to live through. It is important to understand what really is relevant for them, to see which signals they give you to understand what they need. We work in different ways with different people – for those who don`t speak, we will find the possibility to express themselves with plasticity, with postures, gestures, with music – there are a lot of options. The same with painting. Here you can also live through something, but only on paper.

«My melancholy's light…». I believe that genuine emotions can`t be bad for you. The person still lives through it. These are the real emotions of a person, not artificial. And all our emotions and reactions evolve and change all the time. Today you think and feel one way, and the next day you wake up and realize that you feel absolutely differently about the things you experienced and thought about yesterday.

But here in the nursing home I have never felt hopelessness. People here live with “faith” and they convey it. For example, you come in a bad mood, and everyone would always ask you, “what happened?”, and then would say, “you know, everything is going to be ok”. Where does it come from? I don`t know. The priest in the church here says that it is probably due to their proximity to God..

People like this are those who usually make important social changes, because they evoke compassion. But at the same time, they make us question ourselves: Am I alright? What am I doing? They send us back to the normal human notions of life, love, death. Do we think about it throughout life? No. We are always busy with something, always running, building a career, we are moving too fast.

We must show the life of these people. If we are talking about an art program, our mlain goal is to keep it genuine. When we work on a theater play, we keep the people as they are, and we build the story around them. The same in the art studio, we don`t teach these people the techniques of drawing, we don`t correct their works or add anything. We work very slowly. The minimum time we spend creating a play is a year, as we want it to be meaningful.

I was asked why do you prolong the suffering? The person is suffering and you prolong it, why? But, if you ask them, they will show you that they want to live their life even though they are suffering. They live their lives. And they do it great! Their will to live is much stronger than that of a usual person. Give them the possibility to live as they want to.

Although the value of human life is proclaimed in our society, it doesn`t exist in reality. And special people help us to realize the value of our own life. They demonstrate to us how they overcome difficulties, what effort it takes for them to live through a single day. It is their socio-cultural role in society. It might be a consumer idea, but it is worth being consumed! We need to integrate these people into society, not because we are so noble and good, but because we ourselves need it the most.

Sport helps me greatly. I really like to walk, if I walk 8 kilometers a day, I feel good. Moreover, I feed on ideas. I have been working here for 17 years already. Every time I think that I have already done everything that is possible, what else can I do? But then the next idea pops up – a new play, project or something else. The most important thing is to keep the open-ended idea, not to lose what we have already accumulated.

You need to be flexible here. You need to remember your goals and objectives, but if plans change you need to move on and not worry. There are a lot of things in the nursing home that might change for whatever reason.

Special people also can change in half an hour. And you need to understand how to deal with it. Not only to make things convenient for you. We follow them, preferably two steps behind. It is very efficient - they show us a lot of interesting things. Absolutely unexpected things happen all the time. It is important to shape work into something that should be flexible as well.

This is a very useful experience, as we have a lot of things happening that we don`t expect. And this experience helps us to accept everything that comes, regardless of our desires and expectations. This way you keep going towards your goal, but with a lot of interesting things happening on the way.