projects

We were interested in the various forms and ways of existence, creation, and dissemination of contemporary poetry. We did collective projects, anthologies, slams, synthetic projects with musicians, artists, font designers, photographers. We collaborated not only with cultural and educational institutions but also with charities. Know more.

This was our best project in the five years of the InVersia festival's existence. "Live On" charity, which provides psychological support to cancer patients and their families, approached us with the idea for this film. Twenty-eight people agreed to shoot videos of their everyday walks and share their stories about cancer, treatment, acceptance, and their lives before and after, with poets. The poets turned these stories into poetic texts and read them aloud. The result is a complex yet life-affirming video anthology, which was made available on YouTube. Watch here.

A collective project within the InVersia festival. We chose the poem "Plain Girl" by Nikolai Zabolotsky because it is a well-known text in Russia, part of the Soviet literary canon, and it evokes conflicting emotions. Thirty contemporary poets wrote their own texts that respond to, engage with, or criticize this poem. Then, scholars (philologists, philosophers and cultural studies experts) analysed this corpus of texts. As a result, we published a book with all the collected poems and scholarly papers. See more.

In 2016, my colleagues and I launched the "Poems About..." project in Chelyabinsk. These are regular (approximately monthly) meetings and poetry readings on a given topic. Anyone who wishes can participate, we read any poems from any time by any authors in any languages. The project quickly attracted not only poets but also many poetry enthusiasts (librarians, university professors, school teachers, artists, gallery owners and brewers). Meetings take place in various venues - pubs, museums, libraries, at various regional festivals, including the South Ural Book Fair. In 2024, we launched "Poems About..." in Yerevan.