Review of the «The Flash End» exhibit. CTI «Fabrica» from 31.01.2026 Artists: Maria Arendt, Olga Babina, Olga Bozhko, Alexei Veselovsky, Eldar Ganev, Danil Danot, Ilya Evdokimov, Anastasia Ivanova, Dmitry Kawarga, Zak Kahado, Gleb Kosorukov, Maxim Smirennodrensky, Sergei Chernov, Valery Chtak, Lena Sharganov Curator: Michael Sidlin
Types of exposition: " Fabrika " (photo: Tanya Sushenkova)
«Inflammable» is a characteristic of the work of CTI’s art cassette «Fabric» by the curator Michael Sidlin. On January 31, 2026, a truly touching collective exhibition was opened at the Fabrik, the preliminary completion of the history of one of the most important points on the Moscow cultural map.
As is well known, the Fabrica Creative Industries Centre, located in the former October Technical Paper Plant, became an art cassette in 2005. He raised more than one generation of Vigilante artists, presented countless exhibitions to the public, held many bright events, introduced Moscow to foreign authors in the context of the residence programme… TCI «Fabrica», an island of freedom and life, a bulwark of a culture in exponential development.
Opening of the exhibit on 31 January: " Fabrika " (photo: Tanya Sushenkova)
Unfortunately, in 2026, this historic space in the Basman region will cease to exist: some structures say that the area is not being used rationally. Fabrica is now preparing for the transition to a different life. The authors of the «Flash End» exhibit, together with curator Michael Sidlin, reflect on the dichotomy of the industrial-post-industrial. On the one hand, society is still reflecting on the legacy of the industrial era, trying to live with its remnants — a long, decades-long process. And yet he’s running fast, so, as the sponsor says, «it’s time to break up with the post-industrial.»
Where is modern society now? It hangs between utopian views and a murky future. Between the poetry of life, the creation of beauty, the good service, and the labor without any guarantees, technology and services. This state of stagnation of the post-industrial one is illustrated by the exhibition project. The creative team takes the technological context of «Fabrica» (local history) as the basis, but goes further, extending the time and geographical boundaries, mapping the symptoms and diseases of Russian society in relation to culture and work — forms of simulation of active life.
Visit by curator Michael Sidlin to the workshop of artist Valerie Chtak on «Fabrik» ♪ Fabrika ♪ (photo: Tanya Sushenkova)
The area of the speech is almost all of the «Fabrics» space: finishes, floors with stairwells, Valeria Chtak’s workshop, and even a mysterious attic. It’s the last time an art claster’s body shows amazing signs and messages from artists. «Fabrica» exposes its unseemly places, exposes the soul before dying and then being born again, but in another form. The audience is a «archaeologist» and a co-researcher. His mission is to walk with artists to the deepest depths of space and to reflex about the end of our era, about changing paradigms of man-made and technological.
Invented. 1: Exposition viewers in the former elevator with pictures of Gleb Kosorkov / Izorb. 2: The work of Maria Rrendt on the stairwell of the «Fabrica» (photo: Tanya Sushenkova)
How was the exhibition built? The curator avoids a strict thematic setting of guest authors ' works. The area-wide demonstrations form specific conceptual-plastic «sites» or clusters that concentrate their own sub-themes as designed by Sidlin. This will create a multiplicity of views and positions vis-à-vis the central design of the project. However, in order to systematize hidden links into a single line, it is necessary to divide the works throughout the exhibition into clear thematic sections. The messages of «The Flash End» only become clear when the viewer has seen the entire exhibition. The links between the works arise on their own, without visible effort. At the very beginning of the examination, in the Zeha area, the viewer will have to gather the first hints of a narration: this is where the stories are just beginning to come together.
Based on the first outlines of the project, the following pillars can be identified: allegory of hope, work as creativity, cartography, support structures, return to the home country, poetry of the end. The titles of the sections are simply a free interpretation of the ideas formed by the works.
Point of entry for the exhibition: " Fabrika " (photo: Tanya Sushenkova)
The thematic block of allegories of hope begins in Zeh and ends up on the stairwells of Fabrica. The example work is «Little to Heaven» (2016 — 2025) by Sergei Chernov. In its object, the vast obelisk of «the masters of space» literally grows through the thickness of soil and roots, as if approaching the reality of a man’s dream of knowledge of the universe. The cosmic/earth dichotomy transitions to a dichotomy (without) danger in the growing Tseja ceiling (and other Fabrica locations) of the Danil Danot system, «Treat Almond branches» (2026). From a distance, the entire system — barbed wire adorned with pink editing foam — resembles a plant with the same name of Van Gogh and refers to a form of renewal and eternal beauty. As we approach, the viewer sees the danger in this strange beauty. Pink foam, alas, cannot completely disarm the bar and create silent but dramatic tension. Is beauty really a sacrifice?
Invented. 1-2: «Laster to Heaven», 2016-2025. Wood, metal, acryl / Invent. 3–4: Daniel Danot. «Creatures of Almonds» (fragments), 2026. Mixture technique: " Fabrika " (photo: Tanya Sushenkova)
The idea of hope continues in the aphorisms and affermations of Ilya Evdokimov, namely in the Lion Rubinstein «Spring Will» series (2026). Taking the immortal phrases of one of the founders of Moscow’s conceptualism as a plastic basis, the artist draws portraits from the texts where the main slogan promises spring. The portraits of an artist, made on October’s technical paper, can be seen in the walls and crossings of «Fabrics», so the concept of the great utopia and the forces of dreaming piercing through space and time, embodying the impossible.
Ilya Evdokimov. «Spring to Come,» 2026. October paper from the technical paper factory, Truck Truck Fabrica (photo: Tanya Sushenkova)
Dmitry Kawarga and Gleb Kosorukov are reflecting on work as a life-artificial and creative machine. They poetize the day — to — day work by turning to things and people. Artists' projects record the fragility and elusive beauty of the world from which «Fabric» came out. The works of Kawarga and Kosorukov are located in the spacious area of Zeha finishes, which, given the columns and elevators, is very similar to the interior of the Catholic temple: three nefas, the entrance to the altar and the altar itself. Dmitri Kawarga’s sophisticated mutant facilities, based on the actual equipment provided by the October FTP, were located in the «central nefa». They live their last moments, last reborn, moving from one aggregate state to another.
Dmitri Kawarga. The site cycle is based on equipment provided by the TCI Fabrica staff, 2026. Mixture technique: " Fabrika " (photo: Tanya Sushenkova)
In the «altar» (in fact, ex-Lefterian) there were large photographs of Kosorukov from the «Stachanov Shaht Project, Krasnoarmesk (Pokrovsk)» (2009). The artist plays with the eras: he «places» modern miners in the Sthanov world, finding similarities in the archetypes of the working class that preserves, as Kosorukov writes, the «identity of the proletariate».
Kosoruk Blub. The Stakhanov Shaht, Krasnoarmesk (Pokrovsk), 2009. Artificial defective material, pigment seal, acrylic varnish, «Fabrika» (photo: Tanya Sushenkova)
The Fabrica territorial CTI is located between the Baumana subway stations and the electric power plant. Within this boundary, a particular spatial experience is emerging. A number of artists at the exhibition work with a local context inside and among which the CTC is located. Under the Cheha ceiling, the textile facilities of Eldar Ganev from the Metrolight project (2025) are covered. After re-thinking the ornamental painting of the ceiling of the Bauman and Electronics Stations, the artist invites the spectator to look at the rhythm of the patterns, forcing him to overturn his head.
Eldar Ganev. From the Metrolight Project, 2025. Tissue, silkography ♪ Fabrica ♪ (photo: Tanya Sushenkova)
On the wall opposite Zach Kahado explores the soil of Basman District — fractures, cracks, dirt. On the surface of his «earthly» flat work, there are large forms of multicolored cubes — a reference to the thoughtless world of entertainment, comfort, and meaningless whales.
Zach Kahado. The Shadow of the Western Philosophy of the 20th Century, 2024. Jut, concrete, paint, Lego designer, metal, nails, «Fabrika» (photo: Tanya Sushenkova)
Valeria Chtak’s workshop, literally in the heart of the «Fabrics», is the target of the cluster, as Michael Sidlin has pointed out. The exhibition once again suggests that in the post-industrial reality of this place, the worlds of living and dead artists are confronted with meanings. As part of the tour with the curator, spectators are diving into a space where a great artist once worked, one of the unspoken symbols of «Fabrics»…
Valeria Qutak workshop on «Fabrik»: «Fabrika» (photo: Tanya Sushenkova)
Maria Arendt and Alexei Veselovsky address the subject of pillars, structures and structures that prevent the construction from breaking up. In the multilayered paintings «The Raven / Horizon / Tower» and «The Tower / Horizon / Vorna» (2025), Alexey Veselovsky studies the plastic and visuality of the support structures, examining the interaction between the Tower and the Anti-Bashna, talking about construction and destruction. The tower is the image of height. Maria Arendt, in a series of textile works of various years, «The Shukhov Tower» creates a support for the «Fabrica» — an image of the Shabol Tower in one of the stairwells of the cluster, hoping to keep it from being destroyed.
Alexei Veselovsky. Work of Raven / Horizon / Tower and Tower / Horizon / Raven, 2025. Mixture technique: " Fabrika " (photo: Tanya Sushenkova)
Maria Arendt. Various years of work from the Shukhov Tower Project. Lynx linen, machine embroidery, «Fabrika» (photo: Tanya Sushenkova)
Lena Sharganov and Olga Babina address the issue of lost houses and present works on missing and disappearing spaces. Olga Babina is returning to Berezniki’s hometown to survive a personal disaster at the «Look Out!» video station (2025). Her little homeland is gradually going underground because of the production of potassium salts. The artist remembers childhood by committing symbolic activities on the ruins of the house. Additional material — city photographs and timelines representing the stages of the destruction of the socialist paradise — reinforces the sense that Bereznikov cannot return to his own circles.
Olga Babina. «Look!» 2025. Video (17'43'), photos of «Fabrika» (photo: Tanya Sushenkova)
Lena Sharganov took up the attic, the most mysterious, semi-theatrical space of the Fabrics. Here, the artist placed an installation from the personal project «Luchesar City», the «re-established» Palace of Culture «Shachteur» of her home town, Nelidovo. The JC was built in 1955 and has not known the renovation since then, gradually becoming a ruins. The renovation of the phantom image of the Palace was done in the «soft architecture» of textiles. Light and sound complement the sense of the ghost and fragility of history and memory.
Lena Sharganov. «The Palace of Culture,» 2025. It’s a textile collage. Tissue printing, hand embroidery, acrylic «Fabrica» acryl (photo: Tanya Sushenkova)
Finally, the poetization of the violent end is being carried out by Maxim Smirnodrensky and Olga Godko. Their works are located nearby as keys to the completion of the exhibition. In the work of «Iona in the belly of a whale» (2023), the Smithy-Dreen pushes the spectator to be fearless. The end isn’t the final; there’s always a way out, just wait for Jonah to come. And Olga Bozhko at the Happy End (2026) is playing an optic game with the audience. Flowers — Forewarners and Communicators of Death or Beautiful Samples on the Dairy Clumb? Is the happy ending a happy breakup or an epitaph?
Maxim Smooth-Dreen. «Iona in the Cheetah,» 2022. Banner, mixed technique: " Fabrica " (photo: Tanya Sushenkova)
Olga Godko. The Happy End, 2026. Installation. Acrylic threads, wires, wooden laces, Fabric cement (photo: Tanya Sushenkova)
By absorbing the energy of the leaving place and breaking it through a variety of artistic methods, the Flash End becomes a complex, multi-formed, sensitive manifesto. This project is both a good-bye to the past and a passionate attempt to capture its image at a moment. Productions dispersed through workshops, stairways and shacks have the effect of over-concentration of meanings, where every crack in the wall, every ray of light falling on an old machine, has a voice in the choir of artists.
Eldar Ganev. «Case in the pool,» 2025. Nervous steel, ceramic plates, «Fabrika» (photo: Tanya Sushenkova)
The Fabrics Territory is the face of an irreversible modernity. And «The Inflammable End» is an act of designing a site for the transition to a new world like the one that the lion of Aslan did in the last, seventh, to lead the «Narnia Chronicle» by C. S. Lewis. The project team doesn’t say goodbye to Fabric forever; it only documents the rebirth of the phoenix, the change of rhythms and seasons. An art claster in Basmann, when it ceases to exist, leaves behind not a deaf void, but a crystallized energy of meaning, the one where spring will be for a year in a row. I’m sure it will!
The «Flash End» exhibition is a good example of multi-level mentoring with historical and cultural space. The Master’s Programme of the School of Design of the INE «Courator-ma-courts». The programme prepares universal specialists in curatorship, management, production and research on cultural projects.
Fragment of the exhibit entitled Landing. 14 alleys, 2024. : Alexander Pantheliev: Photo: E. Aleinikova.
The author of the text: Michael Arutyunyan Image provided by CTI «Fabrica» Photoographer: Tanya Sushenkova on cover: Sergei Chernov. «Little to Heaven», 2016-2025. Wood, metal, acryl
