Marina Vinnik: Art and Defining Russian/Soviet Imperialism and Colonialism

In the framework of EEGA’s Summer Term Colloquium 2023,  EEGA fellow Marina Vinnik presented her research on “Art and Defining Russian/Soviet Imperialism and Colonialism” on May 10, 2023 in cooperation with Leipzig University.

During the presentation Marina Vinnik talked about the mosaic structure of the imperial and colonial identity in the Russian Empire and its implications for the early Soviet Union. There are several interesting case studies in the history of art: for instance The Wanderers — a movement whose goal was to break out from the Eurocentric Imperial Art Academy, or an artist Natalia Goncharova who was looking for the “true” Russian identity in herself and her art around the revolution, and in the end Socialist Realists who were developing “Soviet” image though in all the Republics of the Soviet Union it was nationally coded. Marina Vinnik discussed how the mosaic project of Soviet Identity was reflected and perpetuated by the visual artists and what consequences it has for the modern post Soviet space.

Marina Vinnik was born in 1984 in Kemerovo, Russia. She studied documentary filmmaking from 2006 – 2011 at VGIK (The Russian State University of Cinematography). In 2016 Marina Vinnik moved to Germany to be a part of the Meister-programm at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig (class of Prof. Alba D’Urbano). In 2023 she finished her PhD thesis Reimagining the Canon: Women Artists in the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Russian Federation at Leipzig University under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Dr. Tanja Zimmermann.