Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve will take part in 19th International Festival “Intermuseum”

The Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve will introduce its projects in Moscow from May 25 to 29. The museum employees will be able to tell about their work to colleagues from Russia, the near and far abroad countries. The key subject of this year’s festival organized by the Ministry of Culture of the RF will be the Museum of the Future. Such issues as new optics and the capacity to advance to an absolutely new level, the future of a specific man and the future of the museum field in general will be discussed at the 19th International Festival “Intermuseum”.

The employees of the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve will present two projects at “Intermuseum 2017”. The website and the information and exhibition centre “Saint Kirill Belozersky” (KirillBelozersky.ru) will be introduced by Alexey Smirnov in the nomination “Best Project in IT-Sphere”. It was made within the framework of the International Contest “Orthodox Initiative” by specialists of the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve and some other museums and libraries (the Vologda Regional Universal Scientific Library, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Hermitage, the State Russian Museum, the Central Andrey Rublev Museum of Ancient Russian Culture and Art, the British Museum and so on).

“The website “Saint Kirill Belozersky” is the whole encyclopedia about the saint’s life”, noted A. Smirnov, head of the project. “This project was implemented from March 2016 to February 2017. This year marks the 620th anniversary of the foundation of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery and the 590th anniversary of death of St. Kirill Belozersky. The website about the founder of the cloister was put up on the occasion of these dates. All available materials about St. Kirill Belozersky were gathered on one website within the framework of this project: the text of the Life, personal belongings and books from the saint’s library, icons and church articles with his image, information about the churches or side-churches of St. Kirill Belozersky. The whole section tells about the history of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery up until today. The website also presents an animated cartoon and a short film about the life of St. Kirill Belozersky. High-resolution pictures are posted on the new website; many of them are first published Users will be able to see full-scale photos of the chains of St. Kirill Belozersky, gold embroidery, icons, frescoes and books in the Internet for the first time”.

Lifting the veil, we can say that at present they are making a list of possible suggestions to upgrade the new resource, for example: translation into foreign languages, license acquisition for full presentation of the pictures, high-quality shooting of some articles. The employees of the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve don’t conceal, “The victory in the competition program of “Intermuseum 2017” would certainly help to attract attention to the project and its further development”.

The employees of the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve have a lot to share with their colleagues. The artist Marina Vasilieva uses interesting forms and methods working with a special group of visitors. She easily attracts the attention of persons with mental disabilities. Her project “Clay Therapy as a New Way of Rehabilitation of Disabled People” is nominated as “Best Project Aimed at Social Interaction” in the “Intermuseum 2017” competition program. “Work with clay is good for the mind and develops qualities that are necessary for a man: spatial thinking, visual memory, skills of analysis and synthesis, fine motor skills. The first teaching principle within the framework of this project is to give equal attention to everything that forms the entire development system of creative abilities: development of imagination and perception, reproductive and productive activity, visual-motor coordination and spatial relations, abilities to work from memory. The second principle is explanation and practical demonstration of the methods of work. You cannot expect pupils’ good results without knowledge of technical peculiarities of the craft. The third principle is the use of each specific task to develop general skills. The teacher helps pupils to master the skills of two kinds: skills to see and to translate into practices, “to put an eye” and “to put a hand” (no wonder that describing good masters ceramists say “their mind is in fingers”) “, explained M. Vasilieva.

The real professional – the artist Marina Vasilieva – will teach everybody to “put mind into fingers”. She has been working with clay for many years, and all her toys are lifelike and all articles are exhibits for displays. But Marina Nikolaevna has a secret that she reveals at every master-class noting, “You can find clay for earthenware almost everywhere, but local clay of Kirillov has special qualities. It is very easy to work with it; it shrinks a little bit while drying the article and there are no problems during burning”.  

The artist of the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve taught social service receivers of the psychoneurologic hospital in Pustyn to shape ceramics by hand. About 200 men of different age who have mental disorders are patients of this institution. “The work within the framework of the project “Clay Therapy as a New Way of Rehabilitation of Disabled People” includes individual (throwing), group (clay modeling) and collective (theatricalized lectures) modes of study. Organizing the educational process, the teacher uses a person-centered approach. The teacher helps the pupils to implement their creative ideas explaining the laws of form making, demonstrating methods of work, gently correcting and helping to make articles, creating and applying visual aids (examples of the articles)”, said Marina Vasilieva answering the question about the methods of her work.  

The employees of the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve will tell about all these achievements in the sphere of innovations, methods and museum discoveries to participants and contestants of the 19th International Festival “Intermuseum” in May. We hope that they will return to Kirillov in triumph.

The photos are taken by employees of the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve and Maxim Yevdokimov.