Flor et Lavr Gallery is pleased to present projects by two artists created in residence in the village of Bolshie Shatnovichi. Artem Lyapin will display works from The House That Ate Itself series, while Polina Rukavichkina will show a new photo project called Pale Shelters. Both series will be presented at the curated stand titled The Loneliest Stork. Its concept is built around the phenomenon of the Russian village, its gradual withering, and the lives of its inhabitants.

In June 2024, artists Artem Lyapin and Polina Rukavichkina became participants in the second residence of Flor et Lavr Gallery in Bolshie Shatnovichi. Each of them created works in their own medium. The village and its inhabitants appear in Polina’s photographs, and Artem Lyapin creates a series about the stork Zhenya, whose prototype was one of the villagers.
The exhibition design is based on the idea that Zhenya the stork is traveling through the deserted black-and-white landscapes of Bolshie Shatnovichi. The structure, assembled from cubes, fragmentarily reflects the life of a Russian village in the format of an advertising billboard.

Polina Rukavichkina presents a new series of photographs, Pale Shelters. In this project, a semi-abandoned village in the Leningrad Region appears as an enchanted space without time, where random passersby become heroes of myths and children's fears await around the corner. Mystical coincidences are woven into a pale reality; echoes of not always joyful events are heard among the picturesque ruins and landscapes, and hideouts along the way can be both a shelter and a crime scene.

Artem Lyapin’s works from The House That Ate Itself series create their own myth based on the history of the village. In Bolshie Shatnovichi, the artist had two meetings that formed the basis of the project. There, Artem first saw storks, which tend to live in pairs. The artist also met Zhenya, who, having lived his entire life in the village, is now the only inhabitant of a tumble-down apartment building. Through his lace works, Artem tells the story of Zhenya the stork, who never found a mate, remaining forever alone in the village. The author raises the issue of the death of the village, revealing it through his personal story.