EastEast Paper is an artifact publication in Russian, English and Arabic languages, which creates a dialogue within multiple Easts: geographical, mental, historical, and cultural, and analyses current state of society with the participation of art scene members, philosophers and enthusiasts.
We create an alternative navigation and different orientation in today’s complex world. Out of orientalist projection we set the coordinates for the scenarios of possible future and open up new cartography of solidarity across borders.
Editorial
When antiquity’s metal mirrors were replaced by Venetian glass mirrors, which did not distort reality or require careful polishing, there was a change in the paradigm of how humans perceived and visualized themselves and the world. The image reproduced in a glass mirror needs no interpretation: it appears to be an unambiguous and uniquely faithful likeness.
On the front and back pages of EastEast Paper, water (“On Water”) is reflected in its absence (“No Water”). Through a sixteenth-century Iranian silver mirror from the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, we travel to the memories of the artist Alexander Ugay on the shores of the Aral Sea, deprived of its global purpose of being a sea.
“All the religions of the world imagine a primordial world ocean, and water has exceptional importance for human beings. Time flows by as we are drowning in work, wallowing in success, washing our hands of it and laundering money, quenching our thirst for knowledge at the wellspring of truth, falling into a bottomless well, and experiencing a sea of emotions: aquacentric metaphors are essential to all world cultures,” writes Alexey Ulko in his essay Water as Hyperobject. Water is nothing but a hyperobject capable of multiplying meanings in the search for alternative sources of truth.
Being “on the water” means sailing on an Arab dhow, or standing on the edge of Ras Nouadhibou (Cabo Blanco), or traveling along the shores of the shallow Aral Sea with contemporary artist Alexander Ugay as our guide. It means pouring water from the Black Sea into the Red Sea with Francis Alÿs, or traversing an ancient ocean’s dried-up bottom with Andrey Fomenko. Reflecting on the turbulence of 2020 and how the virus has become a cultural ideal, we are in the flow, and therefore also “on the water”.
You will encounter many views of the east on the pages of EastEast Paper. Perusing its pages is like looking through a kaleidoscope: join us in trying to build a mosaic of our times and, thus, answering the questions of who we are, where we are from, and where we belong.
Elena Yushina, Editor-in-Chief of EastEast Paper
(EEP) Team
Editor-in-Chief: Elena Yushina
Art Director: Andrei Shelyutto
Design and layout: Irina Chekmaryova
Executive Secretary: Lilit Akopyan
Editor: Olga Ulyanova
Proofreading: Andrey Bauman, Thomas Campbell
Translations from Russian to English: Thomas Campbell, Simon Patterson
Translations from English to Russian: Olga Ulyanova
Translations from Russian to Arabic: Alexandra Shirshova
ISBN 978-5-6045059-0-8 (ФАРО/FARO)
10.000 copies
You can reach us at paper@easteast.world
Free Distribution
Moscow
Moscow Museum of Modern Art (25, Petrovka St.; 10, Gogolevsky Blvd.; 17, Ermolaevsky Lane; 37, Novogireevskaya St.)
Museum of Moscow (2, Zubovsky Blvd.)
The State Museum of Oriental Art (12A, Nikitsky Blvd.)
WINZAVOD Contemporary Art Center (1/8, 4th Syromyatnichesky Lane)
Jewish Museum & Tolerance Center (11, Obraztsova str.11, building 1, letter A)
Rodchenko Art School (33/19, Bl. 1, Prechistenka St.)
Szena Gallery (42, Pyatnitskaya St.)
Triumph Gallery (3/8, Ilyinka St.)
Cube.Moscow (3, Tverskaya St.)
Nekrasov Library (58/25, Baumanskaya St.)
Bookstore “Tsiolkovsky” (8с1, Pyatnitsky Lane)
Bookstore “Falanster” (17, Tverskaya St.)
Public cluster “Red Arrow” (19, Bl. 2, 3rd Krasnoselsky Lane)
Lobby (4, Ilyinka St.)
The Nest (1, Sretensky Blvd)
Rehab Shop (19/6, Bolshoy Kozikhinsky Lane)
Blanc (7/9, Bl. 5, Khokhlovsky Lane)
Simach (15, Tverskoy Blvd.)
Hotel Richter (42, Pyatnitskaya St.)
Hotel Moss (10/4, Krivokolenny Lane)
Saint-Petersburg
The Russian Museum of Ethnography (4/1, Inzhenernaya St.)
The Manege Central Exhibition Hall (1, Isaakievskaya Square)
St Petersburg Museum of Avant-garde (Matyushin's House) (10, Professor Popov St.)
SPbU Alumni Association (2, Mendeleevskaya Line)
The Saint Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design (13, Solyanoy Lane)
Goethe-Institut (58, Moika Emb.)
Bookstore “Word Order” (15, Fontanka Emb.)
Bookstore “Podpisnie izdaniya” (57, Liteiny Pr.)
Bookstore “Vse Svobodny” (23, Nekrasova St.)
Bronnitskaya Library (17, Klinsky Pr.)
Sevcable Port (40, Kozhevennaya Line)
DK Gromov (4, Gromova St.)
FotoDepartament (13-15, Grazhdanskaya St.)
Marina Gisich Gallery (121, Fontanka Emb.)
KGallery (24, Fontanka Emb.)
Myth Gallery (61, Chaikovskogo St.)
Name Gallery (2, Bolshaya Konyushennaya St.)
Galerie 46 (44, Bolshoy Prospect P.S.)
The Third Place (62, Liteiny Pr.)
Cafe Rubinstein (20, Rubinshteina St.)
WöD (45, Bolshaya Morskaya St.)
