A contemporary art exhibition titled “The Romance of the Rose” debuts at the NOTA building in St. Petersburg, turning the library and cultural center into a space where art and the idea of libraries collide. The creative project explored by the organizers uses a broad spectrum of materials and media to interpret the library as a living organism. Viewers will encounter sound installations, architectural experiments, works with glass and sand, textile pieces, neural networks, interactive displays, and books assembled as aesthetic objects. The pieces come together to form a live conversation about libraries and reading across generations.
A substantial historical core accompanies the new works. Visitors can move through a carefully curated sequence of panels that trace the fate of storied libraries through dramatic historical moments. The display invites contemplation of how libraries have endured, transformed, and sometimes vanished, while preserving the memory of human knowledge in changing times.
The exhibition features works by Anna Martynenko, Vladimir Kopeikin, Emilia Sanga, Pyotr Bely, Lev Manovich, Evgenia Tut, the Sever 7 art collective, and several other artists. Each contributor brings a distinct voice, from avant-garde experimentation to reflective archival practice, creating a tapestry that honors both the past and the imagined future of libraries.
The title draws on the medieval east and west tradition of the rose as a symbol of knowledge and romance. The project is structured in three sections that illuminate different facets of libraries, past and future. The first section presents contemporary art in dialogue with historical counterpoints, offering a fresh lens on how today’s creators perceive archival memory. The second section, focused on space and time, examines how library spaces evolve while records and experiences migrate between formats. In the final section, audiences are invited to observe how the figure of the reader has changed across eras, from manuscript culture to digital immersion. Each part contributes to a larger narrative about reading as a human constant, even as technologies and institutions shift around it.
Earlier this year, an exhibition at the Russian House in Rome marked the 150th anniversary of composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, broadening the conversation around art and memory with a different historical focus. That presentation, while distinct in theme, shared the city’s spirit of cross-cultural dialogue and the persistence of cultural memory across borders.