Members of the group of Russian museum professionals, participants of the Museum Bridges bilateral French-Russian Bi-lateral Training program, co-organized and co-funded by the Vladimir Potanin Foundation and L’Institut Français de Russie, have been selected. The Russian Ministry for Culture includes the training into the official program of the Cross-Year of Cultural Tourism: Russia-France 2016.

The subject of the visit of the Russian group to France and the return visit of French professionals to Russia is Modern Arts, Traditional Museums and Cultural Heritage: Mutual Influences and Interactions; it covers one of the most important issues of modern developments in museum practices.

How do modern collections integrate with classic ones? Can they be harmoniously displayed in traditional museums, listed buildings, heritage sites or industrial spaces? How do cultural brands promote transformation of traditional industrial spaces and historical landmarks? The training participants will learn about the experience and positioning practices of both large Paris museums and regional museums of different scale and profile.

57 professionals – development directors, curators of modern arts collections and museum directors – applied for 5 places available in the group.

The group of the selected participants includes:

• Juliya Glazyrina, Perm Regional Museum, Perm
• Irina Kiryukhina, the Kulikovo Field State Museum of Military History and Natural Preserve, Tula
• Anna Polyakova,B. Shatilov Local History Museum, Tomsk
• Polina Popova, the Russian Academy of Fine Arts Museum (RAFA), St Petersburg
• Alisa Prudnikova, the National Center for Contemporary Arts, Urals Branch, Yekaterinburg.

Oksana Oracheva, Director General of the Vladimir Potanin Foundation: “Our joint program with L’Institut Français de Russie  is an example of how cultural projects promote international liaisons. The goal of our program is not to organize a traditional skills-upgrade trip. We primarily attempt to create momentum for new partnerships between museums of our countries. We have managed to put together an outstanding group of Russian professionals representing Russian regions from Moscow to the Urals and Siberia and a vide palette of museum institutions: local history museums, natural reserves and fine arts museums. We hope that each member of the Russian group would be able to offer western colleagues an insight into Russian museum community, tell them about its interests and perspectives, as well as suggest ideas for interesting joint projects. The membership of the French group to visit Russia in autumn 2016 would be determined based on these ideas and cooperation plans. This is indeed the primary goal of the Museum Bridges program: to build “bridges” between museums of our countries, establish strong connections between professionals and enable them to jointly implement new bright ideas.”

Philippe Voiry, Director of L’Institut Français de Russie : “We are very pleased that so many top-level professionals showed interest in the Museum Bridges program of the Vladimir Potanin Foundation, that we eagerly supported. It was quite a challenge for the Expert Committee to make a choice. This trip would become a test run and we do hope that it proves to be successful and useful for both Russian and French professional communities. If the result meets our expectations, we would be delighted to continue this kind of cooperation.”

The program consists of two stages:

Stage One: a week-long intensive training (May 2016) for five Russian museum professionals in France. During that time the participants will get acquainted with the national system of museums and institutes of cultural heritage, visit national and local museums, learn about everyday museum practices, as well as start up professional partnerships between Russian and French specialists for implementation of joint projects and initiatives.

Stage Two: the reciprocal visit of five museum professionals from France to Russia (October - November 2016) in order to strengthen and develop connections, continue joint studies, cooperation and experience exchange. The French participants will visit leading museums of Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as regional museums.