Everybody Is Present. IV International Inclusive Festival

From 14 to 25 October, the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts will host the IV International Inclusive Festival. This year its theme – 'Everybody Is Present' (a paraphrase of the name of a famous performance) - means the representation of people with different opportunities in the museum.

The festival's curator is Evgeniya Kiseleva and the theatre programme curator is theatre critic Nika Parkhomovskaya.

The festival participants include specialists from Russia, Switzerland, Japan, the USA, Israel, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mozambique.

The festival programme includes discussions, interviews, performances and engine master classes. In addition, visitors will see an exhibition entitled 'Look From the Inside' («Смотри изнутри»), which presents the works created in #PushkinMuseumForAll by all artists with specific development features.

The central theme of the festival will be experience of social exclusion and the lack of emotional and tactile contact with the world in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Guests of the festival will discuss such contemporary problems as equality and its illusion, hyperlocality and digital freedom, 'theatricality' of everyday life and rethinking the concept of personal boundaries. For the first time, the festival will be accompanied by a special theatre programme. The festival will include an open rehearsal of the play 'There is more than just a herring' («Здесь больше, чем просто селедка») by the creative association 'Inkluzion' («Инклюзион») directed by Tufan Imamutdinov, as well as an inclusive engine master class 'Far and Close' («Далеко и близко») by Swiss specialists from the integration dance company BewegGrund.

The events of different formats included in the programme will help analyse how the experience of isolation has allowed people to rethink their sensory, bodily and communication boundaries, and to realise the changes this rethinking will bring.

All activities are designed for people with disabilities, museum professionals and everyone who wants to. The festival events will be broadcast on the account 'Pushkin Museum For All'.

The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts would like to thank the ABSOLUTE-HELP charitable foundation and personally the chairman Alexander Svetakov, the Swiss Cultural Council Pro Helvetia for organizing the festival.