SELPO | Nikolay Polissky studio

Russian Artist Nikolay Polissky has just completed the SELPO pavilion in Zvizzhi Village in Russia, set in the Ugra National Park. SELPO (acronym for The Rural Consumer Association in Russian) is a sculpture which wraps around a soviet standard-typology building which used to contain the village shop, but has stood as a ruin for the last 10 years, dilapidating more and more with every winter. Nikolay recycled off-cuts from his previous projects and turned them into a rippling, undulating wooden jacket which transforms the eye-saw building into something of wonder, at the heart of this typical Russian village.

Nikolay is hailed as the founder of land-art in Russia and is one of the most prolific large-scale sculptors practicing today. His works range from temporary pieces of landscape proportions, created collectively (Snowmen or Hay Tower, 2000), to public art works in city parks or sculpture parks (Roots de la Loire, 2014 Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire, France) in Europe and in Russia, as well as museum installations (Large Hydron Collider, 2009 MUDAM, Luxembourg).

Nikolay has been living and working in the nearby village of Nikola-Lenivets for over 20 years. His practice is about creating what he calls “a technology for the cultural resuscitation of the village”. He started off as a landscape painter, but in 2000 realised that the incredible resource of the Russian landscape that lay before him, a landscape which belonged to local rural communities which were being destroyed by unemployment, after the disintegration of Soviet collective farms. Over the past 15 years he has turned around the lives of a whole village community, by involving them in making art. This developed into an enduring team of local craftsmen who work with Nikolay on all his artworks and are his co-authors.

About Nikola-Lenivets Park

Nikola-Lenivets Park is located 200 km from Moscow and contains 28 permanent art works spread over 650 hectares, partly occupying the picturesque Ugra National Park. It is a unique project for Russia, and has works by Alexandr Brodsky, Adriaan Geuze and Nikolay Polissky, among others. The Park runs artists and architects residency programmes and holds site specific contemporary arts events, including an annual festival of architecture, Archstoyanie, and a biennial New Media Night festival dedicated to digital arts. Nikola-Lenivets started as a community of artists living and working with the landscape. Nikolay Polissky was one of the founders of the artists community and Archstoyanie Festival. He has been living and working in Nikola-Lenivets since 1989.