Murmansk Prospekt

Murmansk Prospekt is a joint project of Fridaymilk, a team of artists and curators from Russia and Sonic Acts, international festival in the Netherlands. The project aim is to research the urban space of Murmansk from an artistic point of view and search for a new northern identity of the young residents of the Arctic.

Murmansk is the largest Russian city above the Polar circle. As many other Russian cities in the extreme North its population grew enormously under Soviet rule. In the 1990s Murmansk, like most cities in the post-Soviet Union, faced a crisis of social, cultural and economic identity. The port city was in a bewildered state of no exception. A strategic location, an ice-free harbour and an international transport hub for the large industrial companies worldwide – all these have become the basis for a new powerful image of Russia's economic and strategic outpost in the Arctic. But do existing media tags really synchronize with the actual image of Murmansk for the younger generation? And who are they - "young generation of Murmansk"?

Subcultures nature, non-obvious tourist routes, infrastructure projects and features of architectural and design solutions of the past, present and future became a research subject for the invited artists from Russia and the Netherlands. During a series of art residencies in 2019-2020, the artists conducted individual researches of Murmansk and presented their results in the form of workshops, audiovisual performance, live performances and a printed alternative sound map of the city at the international festival Inversia in Murmansk.

The project is supported by Creative Industries Fund