«Projector» magazine. Issue #33
We have published the 33rd issue of Projector with a big «X» on its cover — the magazine turned ten in 2017. However, we can also read the «X» as an «Kh» in cyrilic, and associate it with the initial of Mitya Kharshak, the founder and chief editor of the magazine. This is not a usual issue. This is a magazine about a magazine, a report for the past ten years, the story of how Projector got started, and the opportunity to demonstrate our best-loved studio projects. But, primarily, this issue is about how thankful we are to everyone who has contributed to the magazine over the years — everyone who wrote articles and was featured in them, our partners and customers, readers and friends. The issue is by half thicker than usual — 168 pages altogether — and this is the first time it’s bilingual.
The issue has four chapters: History of the Magazine, Selected Projects, Photography, and Teaching. It also has two forewords alongside the traditional editor’s note. One of them is from Sergey Serov, Projector editorial board member and the president of Golden Bee global biennale; the other is from Yuriy Gordon, designer and artist.
How can I tell a ten-year-old story in a concise magazine format? Designing this issue wasn’t an easy thing — firstly, because it’s quite difficult to divide primary and secondary within a process. Each previous Projector is worth an individual description as they all are full of wonderful publications and relate to interesting stories and encounters. Nevertheless, I gave myself a set target — no more than a fold for an issue, and got over fifty pages anyway.
Selected Projects is dedicated to my favourite works over the past ten years. We really lucked out with our clients — it took a few years to become the most «museum» design studio of the most museum city in Russia. We’re largely involved in cooperation with state and private culture institutions, such as the Russian Museum, the Kunstkamera, Peterhof and Gatchina memorial estates, Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theater, Loft Project Etagi, Novy Museum, DK Gromov, Brodsky.online project, and many more. Surely, we also work with business structures, but this kind of projects takes less than a half of our portfolio. We have chosen twenty-one most interesting case to share, which is seventy pages more.
Chapter 3 is dedicated to my long-term photo project Scaffolded City, which I’ve been running since 2002. This is a lucky exhibition thing: displayed in St.Petersburg several times — for instance, within the official program of Artnight, it was then shown in London, Manchester and Dublin. The photos reveal conventionally baroque and classical St.Petersburg in a daring constructivist way.
Finally, Chapter 4 is about the teachers’ and students’ projects. Back in 2017 I became the Academic Head of Design Programme at HSE School in St.Petersburg, which was preceded by a long an intensive path started in Berlin Higher School of Arts in the nineties. The chapter tells about the most interesting cases of my career as a mentor.
The issue has neither interviews with famous experts nor publications on design history. This is our personal report for the ten-year period — a mono-issue on the history of Projector.
