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On September 6, Anna Nova Gallery, together with the multimedia company dreamlaser, presented the group project “Format Was Changed,” which opened at the TSEH space in Nizhny Novgorod. Timed to the institutions’ 20th anniversaries and the venue’s 5th anniversary, the exhibition, at the intersection of artistic and technological practices, articulates a polyphonic statement about the boundaries of media and their capacity for transformation.
“Format Was Changed” is a research exhibition centered on the notion of the archive. Curators and artists actively reinterpret it, leading to a reconsideration of the meanings of works from different years and the methods of their display. Within the project, these works gain new life: digital pieces are materialized through technologies of light, sound, and algorithmic modeling, while archival ones acquire relevance in new technological formats.
Artists from the gallery Anna Nova: Maria Agureeva, Anna Andrzhievskaya, Yuldus Bakhtiozina, Marya Dmitrieva, Vlad Kulkov, Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov, Fedor Hirosige, Egor Kraft, Denis Patrakeev, and Rostan Tavasiev. The exhibition will also feature a work by Bob Koshelokhov. Brought together, the artists’ works form a living polylogue in which different perceptual optics collide.
“Format Was Changed” is not a static display but a dynamic environment. It is a space of artistic experimentation in which forms, media, and modes of engagement with the viewer are reconsidered. Here, the past becomes a point of departure for seeking new meanings, and the frames set by the traditional archive are deconstructed.
The exhibition is presented at the TSEH* space, whose history is conceptually linked to the project’s research framework. A former printworks with unique architecture and acoustics, it becomes a site for dialogue between artistic practices and an industrial past. Not only the format of art changes, but also the space in which it meets the viewer.
“The essence of an artwork—its inner tension and core statement—finds continuation in a new format. The archive passes through technological transformation, acquiring a new scale, rhythm, and corporeality. An environment emerges that not only unites the works, but addresses the viewer directly. This is not an exhibition in the usual sense, but a living polylogue—spatial, emotional, unpredictable. The project has become a point of intersection between two histories: 20 years of Anna Nova and 20 years of dreamlaser. This encounter is not a conclusion, but an act of renewal and trial. The format truly has been changed,” says Artem Moroz, the exhibition’s curator.
“In the exhibition space of ‘Format Was Changed,’ artistic and technical decisions arise simultaneously, influencing one another. We are shaping an approach in which technology ceases to be a means of representation and becomes a tool the artist uses as a living medium. dreamlaser’s task is to create conditions in which technologies are not the dressing of art, but the environment in which new forms of expression are born,” says Anna Gagarina, the exhibition’s curator.
The exhibition runs through November 9, 2025. Details on the TSEH * website: https://tseh.space.