{Digital Storyteller}
/Breakthrough/
The artwork "Breakthrough" was created for the exhibition "Theatre. Producers. The Digital Age" as part of the Vakhtangov Theatre Management Festival. This piece is a tribute to a woman who carries beauty into the world with fierce intensity.
Together with set designer Irina Babkina, I presented the work "Breakthrough," dedicated to the "First Manageress of Russian Private Theatre" — Anna Brenko.
/Concept/

During the Pushkin era, Anna Brenko emerges as a vibrant, dynamic force who achieved a true breakthrough in theatrical art. The floral motif here is not a symbol of fragility, but a metaphor for a living creator, set in deliberate opposition to the formal, routine theatrical machine of her time. Her method—treating rehearsals as the cultivation of form and scenography as a co-author of the action—was not a romantic gesture, but a discipline of self-sacrifice aimed at restructuring the very logic of the stage.

Her contribution should be measured not by the lifespan of the Pushkin Theatre, but by the scale of the change it ignited; the theatre's brief existence was an act of sowing seeds. The principles she introduced—rigorous rehearsal discipline, scenography as a dramaturgical partner, and an emphasis on the ensemble—were adopted, reinterpreted, and developed by subsequent directors and companies, ultimately altering the grammar of theatrical production.

Contrast is a defining characteristic of Anna Brenko's path: a breakthrough in theatrical life, reforms in theatrical practice, and a synthesis of tradition with new approaches in stagecraft. This is reflected in the visual design through a stark contrast of black and white, punctuated by color accents, symbolizing the creative tension between tradition and innovation.
/Exhibition /

The work was exhibited at the VEB Center as part of an installation stand, as well as on media facades across Moscow.
/Acknowledgments /

Ira, thank you for your vision, impeccable taste, professionalism, and for hitting the bullseye of what I imagined this work could be.

Thank you to the curators who believed in me and gave me complete artistic freedom: Stella Labuzhskaya, Diana Fokina, and Ekaterina Shcherbakova-Torchilevskaya.