GAUDЕAMUS
27 January – 3 April 2016

The Lumiere Brother Center for Photography presents a new exhibition on January 27 Gaudeamus, the opening of which will coincide with the celebration of Student’s Day in Russia. Encompassing works of Soviet photographers from the Center’s collection, private collections, and university and historical archives, the exhibition shows what student life was like during various decades and reminds viewers their years as a student. The photographs capture the spirit of student life, which has been for centuries celebrated in the famous anthem Gaudeamus.

The exhibition aims to present a universal image of young people who contributed to the rise of science and arts and participated in social life. University life as a particular lifestyle, a community imbued with vitality and spirit of amity and creation, is depicted in the photographs of first-class photojournalists, amateurs from clubs and independent photographers such as Yakov Khalip, Nokilay Rakhmanov, Arkady Shaikhet, Mikhail Trakhman, Vladimir Lagrange, Anatoly Boldin, Andrey Knyazev, Nina Sviridova, Dmitry Vozdvizhensky, Yuri Abramochkin, Lev Sherstennikov, and Valery Khristoforov among others.

Gaudeamus offers a comprehensive perspective on student life during Soviet times. We did our best to include everything that could have occurred during the life as a student in the USSR: from dormitories to academic auditoriums, from labour brigades to working in potato fields, from wits & humour competitions (KVN) to enrollment exams and graduation ceremony. The exhibition covers student life through various generations spanning the rise of the Soviet high school in the 1930s to restoring of the celebration of Saint Tatyana’s Day in the 1990s.

The exhibition includes more than 100 vintages, modern prints, and documentaries. A parallel programme of educational events and tours with experts will accompany the exhibition.


Curator–Zueva Ekaterina.