At the beginning of the year 2022 we were approached by the Directorate of The National Pushkin Museum and were invited to take part in the exhibition project "The Bronze Horseman — all of us are in the vibrations of his copper", dedicated to the 350th anniversary of Peter the Great. In this memorable year the Museum is going to remind about the historical and cultural significance of Peter's image through a special exhibition project.

The exhibition is a route through four halls, where in chronological order will be told about the history of creation and installation of the monument, about the myths and legends associated with it. The concept of the exhibition is based on the image of Peter the Great — the ruler of a new type — and its reflection in works of sculpture, literature, painting, graphics and music. 

In 1824 the largest flood in the history of St. Petersburg happened. Pushkin made it the main action in the poem "The Bronze Horseman".

Water in general has become a defining characteristic of Peter the Great and St. Petersburg. That is why the artistic image of the flood as an all-absorbing element was reflected in the Russian fine art and became one of the key ideas in the exposition's solution. Copper, the elements, the texture of metal and rippling water are all combined meaningfully and stylistically in the concepts we propose.

Walking through the halls, visitors can immerse themselves in the historical and cultural context of different eras associated with the image of Peter. And thanks to modern design techniques, the exhibition can become a landmark contemporary event and attract a new, young audience to such a large and interesting topic.

In line with the exhibition design, which combines images of the water and copper elements, we offered the client a variant in which the main expressive means are the color and texture of water and copper, flooding the central objects and the backgrounds of the presentation media.

The supporting graphics here also reflect the water story: the starting point for these ellipsoidal circles are the circles on the water. In some of the ellipses we suggested inserting fragments of the text of The Bronze Horseman in order to reinforce the literary and cultural message of the exhibition materials.

The main stylistic and semantic element of the other concept we propose is a characteristic network of space vibrations. They come from the Bronze Horseman and, more broadly, from Peter the Great himself, filling space and time, involving both the present and all of us. 

In this version, the accent is placed primarily on the emperor and his jubilee date. The visual solution sets another semantic line: Peter the Great is not only a source of cultural vibrations but he himself is deeply penetrated by them.

The key image — the monument to Peter — is presented from a different perspective on each medium, which makes it possible, even before you get to the exhibition, to get a multifaceted idea of what awaits inside. And the large typographic solution of the date becomes a bright accent that can attract attention.

The third — perhaps the most creative variant. In it we decided to strengthen the idea of vibrations even more and visualized them literally — deforming both graphics and typography.

We focused on the water element. This applies both to the expressive blue color and the textural inclusion in the visual line — as if everything we see is made of water or exists on its plane or is reflected from it. The design of the main texts is just as wavelike, changeable, and fluid, emphasizing the pervasiveness of all messages with the very vibrations of the Bronze Horseman.

Now the museum team is in search of sponsors and partners for such a large-scale exhibition, so we will leave information about its final design in secret, so as not to spoil the surprise when (and if) the exhibition takes place.

Art director: Irina Schmidt

Strategist: Irina Mokrousova

Designer: Olga Samofalova

Project Manager: Anna Artemova