Author: Jenya Stashkov, artist and art critic

On August 1, 2023, an art event titled “Serendipity” was held at Scrutton Street, London, UK, organised by art director Iryna Yauseyenka. This event was attended by 18 professional artists of international level: Aleksandra Sachenko, Alexandra Porsin, Oliver Anderson, Isabella Fischer, Alexander Predko, Anastasia Kozlova, Arina Polishchuk, Sophia Martinez, Ekaterina Rumiantseva, Ksenia Rybka, William Schneider, Benjamin Moreau, Lidiya Spirina, Nurbahar Kran, Ruben Sogomonian, Valeria Shurko, Emma Rossi, and Vladimir Zakharov. The event was a brief (4 hours!) situationist action: a presentation of various artworks (from paintings and sculptures to photography and mixed media installations) related to the feeling of the moment and reflection on the topic of modernity as an elusive living experience. This event is a bright and powerful performative gesture combining an art exhibition, the experience of self-organisation of community representatives, an act of charity, and a chamber form of intervention by artists in the space of an alienated metropolis that is most relevant to modernity.

18 artists, through their artworks, presented 18 ways, strategies, or specific optics of understanding and fixing reality. The reality within the framework of this artistic event is an extremely concentrated sense of what is happening right now—an elusive single moment, hidden between the endlessly sinking into oblivion of the past and the most unattainable future. The range of artistic aesthetics presented at “Serendipity” is amazing. The presented works represent various philosophies of the relationship between “person” and “time”, which cannot be stopped, comprehended, lived, let go of, or caught. Each aesthetic of each artist could be compared with some type of tactility, from gentle touches and strokes to a sharp poke or a rude but fair slap in the face worthy of the offender. The works of 18 artists have formed a bizarre and incredibly integral statement (ensemble), which makes an incredibly vivid impression both at the level of performance, at the level of aesthetic concept, and at the level of direct spectator participation. This art event can also be considered the realisation of a wide range of humanistic values; within its framework, an attempt was made to implement a polyoptic view of reality through the initiation of a meeting of a group of artists with a completely different background with representatives of completely different communities. This event is a kind of active propaganda of living art, capable of overcoming social conventions, stagnation, and ill-will of urban everyday life, and a new way to create social connections and promote the values of self-invention in their personal ways of interacting with other people.

Official website of the “Serendipity” art event