Since the USSR collapsed and independent nations emerged, the Russian state has shaped its national identity by funnelling multiple complex histories into a singular narrative of superpower. Repressive law supplemented with prescriptive visual culture develops a usable past that justifies present political policies and future objectives. As state sponsored cults of memory overspill into cults of war, this “struggle for history” is also a “struggle for mastery” and a national idea that serves the military industrial complex and justifies foreign policy, including the ongoing war in Ukraine.
This conference counterposes memory politics of the Russian state with art and research that confront history as a state tool of manipulation: grey zones, camouflage, masks, mirror images, sites of refusal, and nostalgia. We seek strategies for fostering independent thought within censorious, politicised realms, and investigate how artistic imagery might support or else create ballast against attempts to reify, coalesce and weaponise complex and diverse Soviet pasts into a singular line.
Presented papers explore the complexities of reinterpreting Soviet memory in contemporary Russia, the Eastern European and Central Asian nations that once shaped the Soviet Union. The conference focuses on visual contemporary arts practices from the early 2009 (falsification of history law) to 2025. It embraces divisions, disagreements, and diverse ways of thinking, seeking to shape a framework for contested and multidirectional memories.
Organised by Kitty Brandon-James, PhD Researcher, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, and Elena Konyushikhina, PhD Researcher, The Courtauld.
Schedule:
Friday 6 June | Online
14.45 – 15.00: Webinar opens
15.00 – 15.10: Opening remarks, and introduction to the day
Sarah Wilson, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art, The Courtauld.
Panel 1 – The Weaponisation of History: How the State uses Visual Culture to Manipulate the Past
This session explores how the Soviet period is remembered in contemporary Russia, emphasising historical and sociopolitical perspectives. It focuses on how the state uses visual culture to perform history, focusing on the mechanisms of memory construction, erasure, and revisionism. Papers include investigations into legal or cultural frameworks: mythmaking, sites of memory, embodied affective histories, archival access, or state sponsored exhibitions and media.
15.10 – 16.50: Section I – Early Soviet & Present Day
Ilya Budraitskis, Historian, Cultural and Political Activist,
‘Glorifying the USSR, Criminalizing the Revolution: Putinism and the Image of 1917 in Popular Culture’.
Natalia Tikhonova, Artist, Curator and Media Researcher,
‘Militarisation of the Society on the Examples of Soviet Culture and Their Continuities in Contemporary Russia’.
Post-Great Patriotic War Soviet & Present Day
Anna Zadora, Associated Researcher, Strasbourg University,
‘Refracting Soviet Memories in Belarus’.
Anastasiia Korableva, PhD Researcher in Art History and Theory, University of Essex,
‘Shaping Patriotic Identities: Propaganda Murals in Today’s Russia’.
Panel discussion with speakers
Moderated by Klara Kemp-Welch, Reader in 20th-Century Modernism, The Courtauld
16.50 – 17.00: Break
17.00 – 18.45: Section II – Modern & Present Day Russia
Joe Colleyshaw, Lecturer in Russian Politics, Manchester Metropolitan University and Teaching Fellow in Russian and Slavonic Studies, University of Leeds,
‘Between Co-optation, Continuation and Innovation: Official Memory Discourse in Putin’s Russia’.
Jade McGlynn, Leverhulme Early Career Postdoctoral Fellow, King’s College London,
‘An Old History for a New Future: Russian Historical Destruction and Propaganda in the Occupied Territories’.
Evgeniya Kondrashina, Lecturer, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University,
‘Reimagining the Past: The Role of Illustrations in the 2023 Official High School Textbooks on Russian and World History’.
Panel discussion with speakers
Moderated Michał Murawski, Associate Professor in Critical Area Studies, University College London; Director of the SSEES FRINGE Centre.
18.40 – 18.45: Closing Remarks
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Saturday 7 June
10.30 – 11.00: Registration opens
The Courtauld Institute, Vernon Square Campus
11.00 – 11.10: Opening remarks, and introduction to the day
Sarah Wilson, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art, The Courtauld.
Panel 2 – Alternative Histories: Microhistory and Independent Perspectives
This session looks at the capacity of contemporary visual culture (and particularly contemporary art) to critically engage with Soviet histories. Tackling historical amnesia, nostalgia, selective memory, the panel provides insights on how arts challenge dominant historical frameworks to offer alternative perspectives, that might re-stage the past, and rearticulate relationships between memory, ideology, and civil society.
11.10 – 12.20: Section I – Visual Tactics for Reframing History
Alexey Izosimov, PhD Researcher in Slavonic Studies, Clare College, University of Cambridge,
‘Imagining Alternative Pasts for a Better Future: Heritage and Memory Activism in Contemporary Russia’.
Cristina Moraru, Art Theoretician, Curator and Editor,
‘Counter-Memories and Alternative Narratives: Artistic Interventions in Soviet Histories’.
Elena Konyushikhina, PhD researcher in History of Art, The Courtauld,
‘Visual Strategies of Representing the Soviet Past in Contemporary Russian Art’.
Panel discussion with speakers
Moderated by Elena Zaytseva, Curator and Historian of Art.
12.20 – 13.10: Lunch break
Provided for participants and organisers
13.10 – 15.10: Section II – Trauma & Gulag
Kristian Feigelson, Sociologist, Professor of Film Studies, University Sorbonne Nouvelle,
‘Filming the Gulag: between history and memory’.
Tatiana Efrussi, Artist, Researcher,
‘Norilsk: Landscape of Trauma and Nostalgia’.
Utopia & Lost Belief
Andrea Liu, Visual Art & Performance Critic, Artist, Zurich University of the Arts,
‘What is ‘Russian’ about Russian Cosmism?’.
Ana Dević, Associate Professor of Sociology, Senior Research Fellow, Aix-Marseille University,
‘Memory as Creative Practice? Remembering the Soviet Era at the 2017 Tate Exhibitions and Talks’.
Elizaveta Konovalova, Artist and Researcher,
‘Svoboda. 1919. 2020. Recasting the Soviet Statue of Liberty’.
Panel discussion with speakers
Moderated by Alma Prelec, Postdoctoral Researcher, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
15.10 – 15.20: Refreshment Break
Tea and Coffee Provided
15.20 – 17.00: Panel 3 – Power in the Grey Zones: Camouflage and Interconnectedness–Blurred Boundaries
This panel explores the intersection between the transmission and reception of historical narratives. It investigates how messages are received by audiences and how these messages can be played with. Speakers look at the blurred boundaries of contact zones: at cynicism, doublespeak and double consciousness. They seek a framework that works with productive gaps in meaning making and reception. Together, they ask: What lies beyond representation
Maria Engstrom, Professor of Russian Language and Literature, Department of Modern Languages, Slavic Languages, Uppsala University,
‘The Civilizational Turn and Metamodern Recycling of the Soviet Past in Contemporary Russian Visual Culture’.
Kitty Brandon-James, PhD researcher, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, UCL,
‘Neither Past nor Present: Neither Dead nor Alive. The Phenomenon of Zombie Monuments’.
Valentin Diaconov, Critic, Curator (Modern & Contemporary Art), the Whitworth Gallery,
‘Staging Colonialism: Chukotka Art Works as an Investigation and an Argument’.
Paul Dza, Freelance Reporter and Junior Researcher, French Institute of Geopolitics,
‘“1941-1945 Z” […] “Sorry, we were forced” […] “Rus and Ukr are one nation!” Russian War Narratives Through Soldiers’ Graffiti in Ukraine’.
Panel discussion with speakers
Moderated by Dzmitry Suslau, Lecturer, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies; Creative Director of Climate Art UK.
17.00 – 17.10: Closing Remarks
17.10 – 18.15: Drinks Reception
Open to all
