The art space VOROTA in Kalin­ingrad has been devel­oped as a grass roots com­mu­ni­ty and gallery space since 2013. It has been made by peo­ple for peo­ple, with a help of dif­fer­ent teams of cura­tors which have always been focused around the Kalin­ingrad Union of Art Pho­tog­ra­phers. Sit­u­at­ed in a his­toric mon­u­ment, one of eighth town gate­hous­es dat­ed back to mid of the 19th cen­tu­ry, it has become a mag­net for local com­mu­ni­ties and ini­tia­tives, relat­ed both to arts and dif­fer­ent kinds of activism.

The most recent his­to­ry of this space is a unique exam­ple of bring­ing new life to the his­tor­i­cal mon­u­ment and keep­ing it alive by dai­ly activ­i­ties. On the area of 170 square meters, there have been con­stant­ly chang­ing exhib­it shows (none of them usu­al­ly runs longer than two weeks) and all types of events, rang­ing from con­certs, meet ups, dis­cus­sions, lec­tures, work­shops to larg­er fes­ti­vals. The space is unique in atmos­phere, phi­los­o­phy and appear­ance. It is able to host up to 80–100 peo­ple at once. The entrance to art shows is free. The space is open every day. It has a small café and art works on the red brick walls. It brings togeth­er many dif­fer­ent audi­ences.

The basic prin­ci­ple is to be open to any­body with ini­tia­tive, clear pur­pose and abil­i­ty to orga­nize an event. The role of cura­tors (we are two part­ners in our small team work­ing togeth­er since June 2017, Anna Karpenko and Andrei Ivanov) is to facil­i­tate the process of orga­niz­ing and pro­mot­ing the events. The infor­ma­tion about our activ­i­ties is spread main­ly via social media (@vorotagallery) and by word of mouth. Since re-open­ing after cri­sis in Feb­ru­ary 2018, the art space host­ed more than 250 events, includ­ing almost 50 art, most­ly pho­tog­ra­phy, exhibits, for dozens of thou­sands of peo­ple.

If you want to orga­nize your own event, have a small meet­ing with your friends, or you are just up to have a cup of good cof­fee and explore local art with­out ten­sion, have a look at the Voro­ta.

We are at Litovsky val, 61, in Kalin­ingrad, open dai­ly from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Andrei Ivanov
Anna Karpenko
info@vorotagallery.ru

oogle maps

TWIMC: Nei­ther pub­lic art space Voro­ta nor Kalin­ingrad Union of Art Pho­tografers has noth­ing to do with ArtVoro­ta and Mr. Dmit­ry Selin except com­mon his­to­ry up to 01/01/2017. Thank you and that is enough.