Tutor’s pack
May 1-10 2018 Belarus Čareja — Bielaja Carkva
Ex Nihilo 76.3% of population of Belarus lives in towns and cities. The number of people in villages keeps getting smaller and smaller. Schools, kindergartens, cultural centers and libraries in villages are closing every year. In the middle of nowhere, one hundred architects will search for the ways to bring life back in the villages, and villages — back to the life. To make it together from nothing. Ex nihilo.
The event consists of 3 parts: џ lectures by historians, anthropologists, sociologists and architects; џ workshops; џ final exhibition and festival involving the local community. Participants will get an opportunity to explore Belarus which is not urbanized, learn how to work with local communities, investigate landscape and learn how to work with territory not harming its natural beauty and ecological integrity.
What’s that? SESAM is an international architecture meeting. SESAM is open for students and architects all over the World. SESAM events are a part of EASA network (European architecture students assembly) and can be run in any country of EASAcommunity. The SESAM is an event arranged by the EASA network. Like the basic idea of the EASA assembly, a SESAM can give an addition and/or alternative to the education of students. The independence and off-university-character creates an informal atmosphere. The international character allows participants to learn about other working and teaching methods. The interdisciplinary approach encourages the exchange of different points of view and different presentation media. SESAM Ex Nihilo is a 10 days educational event for students and young architects, designers and artists, which includes lectures, workshops as well as other cultural events.
Location We’ve chosen two villages in 140 km to the north-west from Minsk: Čareja and Bielaja Carkva which are situated in 3 km from each other. In August of 2018 the local community organised a music festival Sprava in Bielaja Carkva and started the great process of transformation of these two villages into cultural centre and artresidence. We, young Belarusian architects, joined them and now are inviting the international architectural community to share this experience with us.
our location
Minsk
Timeline
April, 30 «zero day»: meeting and arrival
May, 2 workshop fair, the first working day, lectures
May, 1 workshops presentation, opening ceremony
May, 4 workshops, lectures
May, 3 workshops, integration evening
May,6 workshops
May,5 workshops, lectures, musical evening
May, 8 workshops, excursion
May, 10 workshops presentations, closing ceremony, festival
May, 9 last day of workshops May, 7 workshops
5. beach
Ex Nihilo’s sites
2. Bielaja Carkva
4. White Church itself 3. peninsula
1. Accomodation. Mechdvor (Mechanical yard). 2. Bielaja Carkva — village.
9. water tower
3. Peninsula. 4. White Church (Trinity Church). 5. Beach. 6. Čareja — the village. 1. accomodation (mekhdvor)
7. Čareja’s central (and the only) square. 8. Linden alley 9. Water tower. 6. Čareja
7. Čareja central square
8. linden alley
1 Accomodation. Mekhdvor Abandoned industrial site with post-apocalyptical atmosphere anr loads of space for work and (p)leasure. Here we will sleep, eat, drink, dance and prepare our structures to be brought to the site as ready for installation as possible. Situated in 1 km from Čareja and in 2 km from Bielaja Carkva. Small building near the entrance will be turned into the infopoint and bar. Long wooden frame building will become our home for those days. Don’t forget sleeping bags, mats and warm clothes. Another structure — the concrete one — divided on 8 blocks is supposed to be the main workshop site and lectorium in case of bad weather. And the toolbox is nearby. For everyone’s comfort, the loudest part of work will be done here — screwing, welding, sawing, dancing etc. Here we wont disturb anyone and break anything except ourselves. After SESAM, the local community is going to run a couple of raves and a sort of beer fest here, and then the administration of the local kolkhoz (collective farm) will probably demolish those buildings.
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Future accomodation, sleeping place: outside and inside.
Future accomodation, working place: outside and inside.
2 Bielaja Carkva. Village First of two basic locations of Ex Nihilo. The village is almost abandoned, but there’s a couple of houses where local activists (including Matvei from the video, yes) live: actors, musicians, artists and historians. Contact us if you need to know something more properly about the locals or to share and discuss your ideas with them.
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3 Peninsula Perfect site for meditative and philosophical workshops. Locals and tourists come here to spend some time alone, to pray or just to observe the landscapes. The only construction here now, except the Trinity church, is the wooden scene built for the Sprava festival which took place on the peninsula in August of 2017. Local commune oered us to build small installations for playing music, listening to music and chilling: scene, benches, loungers etc. Ideas of light installations are also very welcome.
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4 Peninsula. Trinity church Built in 1599 by Lew Sapieha (Lithuanian: Leonas Sapieha) as a part of the basilian monastery. Abolished in 1834. Architectural monument of early Baroque style. Currently the building is conservated. It’s not allowed by the law to do anything with the church itself. Despite of it’s current state and the fact that oďŹƒcially the church is abolished, the building is now used by orthodox believers from the villages nearby, but also as a small concert hall and place for other small activities. Nota bene: no provocative objects here and on the peninsula! Be respectful to the history and the present of the church.
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Approximate drawing of the main altar of the Trinity church; plan of the church.
5 Peninsula. Beach The locals complained that there’s no normal beach and pier, and here is a perfect place to build it. If you want to run a workshop here, plan it as early as possible and inform the organisers due to some technical issues we will have in summer, when the frozen water gets liquid.
6 Čareja. Village So-called agrotown (described by Wikipedia as a well-developed rural settlements with industrial and social infrastructure to ensure social standards for population living there and in the surrounding areas). Population — 500 people. History of the village begins in 1454, when the local basilian monastery was founded. Since the end of the XV century the village belonged to Sapiehas’ clan, and after the Second Partition of Polish and Lithuanian Commonwealth (check the Wiki) in the 1793 appeared in the Russian Empire and was granted to the family of Miloshes. After the Polish–Soviet war, in 1921 Čareja stayed in Soviet union. During the World War II the whole jewish population of the village war murdered. The remains of the jewish cemetery and building the former synagogue are now left untouched. Rich history of the place doesn’t save it from extinction: after the school was closed, no one doubts that Čareja is doomed to the same fate as Bielaja carkva. The only place that’s still breathing is the Culture centre and the central square.
7 Čareja. Central Square 500 years ago the Central square was a huge market that worked almost 24/7. Now the so-called car-market arrives here once a week. The local Cultural centre is now serving as a library, repetition base of the local choir “Inspiration” and a meeting place of the local community. The administration is ready to collaborate with the SESAM partisipants. If you have ideas of involving the locals into the process or using the Centre in your workshop — contact the organizers. On the Central square you can meet a lonely policeman, a group of friendly alcoholics, some nice dogs and a bunch of children. All of them will be glad to join and help your teams.
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Useless but interesting: plan of the main square made before the World War I.
8 ÄŒareja. The linden alley and the lingen meadow The meadow is situated on the highest point in the whole neighborhood, so you can observe all of our sites directly from here. Exactly here hundreds of years ago guys from the Milosh clan hosted their guests, organized cultural evenings with stringed instruments and frothy drinks. In the Soviet times all the cultural events took place here too. Now it looks a bit wild but we will do everything to give it the second life.
9 The water tower And last but not least — abandoned water tower situated near our accomodation. Now it is the birds’ shelter, but anything can be changed and added. Do anything you want!
Summary Here we named all the places we can work on during the Ex Nihilo. All the workshops — theoretical and constructive — are welcome. Nota bene: џ if your construction needs a basement, inform us as soon as possible, so the organizers will manage to prepare the basement beforehand; џ objects for arts and performances (amphitheater, scene or something unexpected) are very welcome as well as constructions for other local activities — markets, concerts, festivals; џ respect the local community: people love and appreciate their habitat, and so should you; џ be sustainable: we expect a permanent impact on the local community and so we want to see permanent constructions. No rubbish and useless stuff!
Contact us
easa.belarus@gmail.com FB: facebook.com/sesam2018 VK: vk.com/sesam2018 See you soon. With love, your SESAM organising team: Andrei, Nastia, Nikita, Sasha, Gleb, Matvei and all the other guys.