Movement toward YIYE

This project is based on the materials of one very strange archive, which we occasionally found a few years ago. This archive formerly belonged to professor Ivan Petrovich BARINOV, an outstanding encyclopedic scientist, now unjustly forgotten.

BARINOV had devoted all his life to the exploration of Polar Lands and in the end of the 1960s he organized an expedition to the Northern Direction. There he found and described the YIYE tribe (The Bunny people), that nobody knew before. YIYE have a cult of hare and wear artificial bunny ears on the top of their heads.

For two years BARINOV lived among YIYE people, doing scientific and geographical research, studying national traditions and local art. He also had created some useful devices out of rubbish found around, taught YIYE people how to use them and introduced the simplest standards of civilization into their life, for example: electricity, money, agriculture, and passport system. At last professor BARINOV left the YIYE land on selfguided airplane.

We have worked a lot with BARINOV's archive, doing a lot of important research and restorations. We arranged the story of professor's adventures into the book "MOVEMENT TOWARD YIYE" published by our won "Mitkilibris" Edition in 1995 and hold a number of big exhibitions with the same name, showing the drawings, paintings, maps, diaries and models, created by professor BARINOV, ethnographical materials, stuffed animals and photoprints:

BOREY ART CENTER, St-Petersburg, November 1995
L-GALLERY, Moscow, February 1996
FOTOIMAGE Gallery, St.-Petersburg, April 1996

Now a part of this project is shown at the Rauma Biennale Balticum 1996.
The installation includes:

) 7 photographs made by I.P.BARINOV, showing the professor himself and everyday life of the YIYE people
) 10 pages from BARINOV's diary, full of technical drawings
) A map of the airplane flight around YIYE land.
) Professor BARINOV's airplane

OLGA and ALEXANDER FLORENSKY
May 9, 1996, Rauma

Art

Cinema

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