Hot Coffee conversation with Ivan Kolpakov, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Meduza and A.B., curators of the exhibition NO at Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien in Berlin
Published Tuesday, June 24,2025
The exhibition “No”, curated by Meduza, is a multidisciplinary project that weaves together contemporary art and documentary testimonies on view at Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien in Berlin. It immerses the audience into the experiences of ordinary people who have learned to live and work in extreme circumstances. The title “No”, «Нет» in Russian, is a statement of resistance. It is a word that has become dangerous to say in today’s Russia — a word that can lead to imprisonment or murder. This exhibition unites the voices of those who continue to say no to dictatorship, censorship, fear, and war. It is an homage to independent journalists, political activists, and all those who dare to disagree. To talk about this prominent exhibition, I have invited its co-curators, Ivan Kolpakov and A.B.
Ivan Kolpakov is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Meduza, the largest remaining independent Russian news outlet published in both Russian and English. It continues to reach millions of people inside Russia despite the newsroom operating in exile for the last nine years. In April 2021, Russian authorities designated Meduza a “foreign agent,” and weeks after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the government began blocking Meduza’s website outright. In January 2023, the Kremlin banned Meduza completely, declaring it an illegal “undesirable organization.” Despite these efforts to destroy the newsroom, Meduza continues to resist and has managed to retain the majority of its audience through a diverse and technologically advanced infrastructure. The other curator of the exhibition is staying anonymous for security reasons, responding to the questions as A.B.
Nina: Imagine you are in your favorite coffee or tea spot. Where is it? What are you drinking? What are the three things you see right now?
Ivan Kolpakov: My favourite spot is the courtyard of the “altbau” (quite old) building in Berlin, where I currently live. A random person can’t get in there, only the residents, but for some reason, they rarely use this opportunity. So the garden is at our disposal, and I still feel there’s something fishy about it.
When we moved in here, I saw an announcement on the wall next to an entrance to the yard saying that “it might look like a neglected garden, but keep in mind that we are actually taking care of it.” I’ve never seen anyone keeping order here, but I’ve slowly gotten into it myself: I clean up leaves, garbage, cigarette butts. I’m going to fix the fence. I don’t touch other people’s stuff, even though it mostly looks like something that has already been thrown out. In any case, I think that announcement at the entrance was some sort of a manual for someone like me.
Here’s what I see: a wooden box in which mint grows, a huge maple tree, and an empty garden chair (where, I hope, my partner will settle down soon). I drink coffee brewed in an Aeropress, an apparatus that we drag from one place to another, a wonderful tool for a wanderer.
A.B.: My favourite coffee spot is a small unnamed café on the shore of the Riga gulf in Jurmala. I am sipping a double espresso and watching the waves coming to and from the beach slowly; seagulls fly around, and people walk by with their kids and dogs.
Installation view, No, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien in Berlin, on view through July 6. Image courtesy of Meduza.
Nina: Your current exhibition NO at Kunstraum Kreuzberg presents an extremely timely conversation among artists, journalists, critics, and filmmakers coming from or connected to Russia. What made you decide on this very specific, multilayered format? Why did you invite these specific artists to participate?
IK: Thank you for such an encouraging question. It was clear from the very beginning that a project that combines art and documentary narrative is a risky proposition. Either it will work out well, or it will fail loudly. There are several reasons why we decided to try our luck.
From one side, it is an attempt to find the right language to talk about our experience. Journalists are not used to being focused on themselves. Even Meduza’s code of conduct states that “journalists should strive to report the news, not become the news.” In addition, we are emigrants from Russia, and when Russia is waging an aggressive war against Ukraine, when a real dictatorship has been established inside our home country, and when many of our friends and acquaintances are in prison, it is difficult to rant about the fate of journalists in exile.
Collaboration with artists allowed us to go beyond the conversation about Russia and media, though both topics are essential for us. I hope that, besides a cry of despair over the state of independent journalism, we have created a project that addresses universal themes. Including the most important theme of all: the story of an ordinary person confronting historical events. This is often a tragic experience, and many across the globe now feel that they will have to try and live through it themselves.
At the same time, even though contemporary art is so political, it seemed to us that plunging artists headlong into the most difficult and painful problems that journalists deal with could be useful and fruitful. We were very keen on the idea of forcing (or rather asking, it is impossible to force) artists and journalists to do something together. Usually, they are fierce — and frequently quite fair — critics of each other. Nevertheless, there is something very important and deeply related in both professions: they shine a light in the darkness.
We spent many months in negotiations with artists and eventually assembled a group of people who, it seems to me, have an allergic reaction to conformism and opportunism. Significantly, many of them work in such a dispassionate manner. In a sense, the artists in our exhibition perform the functions of reporters, impartially observing and reflecting the world. The reporters, on the other hand, are suddenly plunged into self-examination, an extremely unusual vantage point for those who practice journalism.
Installation view, No, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien in Berlin, on view through July 6. Image courtesy of Meduza.
A.B.: We wanted to analyse the past decade and to reflect on the topics that have shaped it: war, resilience, censorship, dictatorship, exile, fear, loneliness, polarization, and, finally, hope.
Artists see the world differently because they’ve chosen an absolutely different career for themselves than the majority of people. Artists have this very specific angle of looking at things and see them in very different ways, according to their practices. The journalists in the show are telling their stories differently — in a documentary commissioned for the show and produced in collaboration with Mikhail Durnenkov, the documentary theater director. They are telling their stories from a personal perspective and are portrayed as who they are — neither heroes nor villains, just normal people in impossible circumstances.
Uniting both these angles makes a lot of sense, especially now. Both the artists and the journalists are bringing society’s attention to topics that matter. We have invited the artists based on their practices, and everyone has something to say on every word within the concept of the show. Alisa Yoffe is in exile herself. Alexander Gronsky, still staying in Moscow and documenting the new reality there, has a lot to say on loneliness. Superflex draws attention to censorship and freedom of speech. Cristina Lucas and Sergey Prokofiev portray the atrocities of wars, each in their way. Semyon Khanin shows polarization in a most analog way, making black turn into white with the help of a lamp, motor, and polarization filters.
Aleksey Dubinsky, The First Day of Spring, oil sticks on canvas, 127x220, 2024. Installation view, No, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien in Berlin, on view through July 6. Image courtesy of Meduza.
Nina: Could you please each choose one work that is currently presented and zero in on it, contextualizing it for our readers. Who is the artist? Why is this work important to the presentation? What larger story is it accentuating?
I.K.: The First Day of Spring by Aleksey Dubinsky, a Russian artist who now lives in Tbilisi, Georgia. Five large canvases depict the long lines of people saying last goodbye to Alexey Navalny, the most prominent Russian opposition leader who was murdered in prison in 2024. In Russia, this public farewell to Navalny is known as the “Funeral of Hope.” This title is ambiguous. For many, Navalny’s murder was the murder of hope for any positive changes in Russia. The life of Navalny, who survived poisoning and successfully resisted the regime for many years with incredible energy and humor, seemed like a miracle. And now, this miracle is gone. At the same time, Navalny’s farewell became, so to say, the largest protest action since the beginning of the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets, unafraid of the police in a country where any street politics is prohibited, where you can go to jail for a solitary picket. This gives hope.
We placed this work at the end of the exhibition, in the hall that is dedicated to hope. The ambivalence of this work is crucial because the whole exhibition has an open ending. We are not simply asking whether there is hope for the future of Russia or for independent journalism.
We are questioning hope as a concept.
Fernando Sánchez Castillo, Expanded Memorial for Alexey Navalny, 2025. Figurines, 2000 pieces, 8.5 cm, PVC. Installation view, detail, No, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien in Berlin, on view through July 6. Image courtesy of Meduza.
A.B.: Fernando Sanchez Castillo, a Spanish artist, works a lot with topics of memory. Within his project Expanded Memorial, he remembers the lonely heroes who have had the courage to resist the system. Expanded Memorial projects consist of monuments to these unsung heroes: one big and hundreds of small ones that visitors can take home with them in exchange for a personal note.
In 2021, he created the Expanded Memorial to August Landmesser, the only person among the dock workers in Hamburg who did not raise his hand in a Nazi salute in 1936. There is a famous photograph where Landmesser stands within a saluting crowd with his arms crossed at his chest. This work was shown in an exhibition, Diversity United, made jointly by Russia and Germany. In the summer of 2021, it was on display in Berlin, and in the autumn of that year, it was moved to the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. It was still on display when the full-scale war started. Of course, it closed quite soon afterward at the request of the German organizers.
But people in Moscow took the small memorials of Landmesser, leaving notes devoted to the future and democracy. A lot of these notes mentioned Alexey Navalny, who was still alive back then, but was already imprisoned by the regime. When we invited Fernando to participate in the NO exhibition, he immediately said that he would want to work on an Expanded Memorial to Alexey Navalny. This project is one of the most touching within the show; people leave a lot of notes that are full of love, hope, and resilience. This is a monument that should exist in Russia, but until that becomes possible, it exists in the hearts of people. Two thousand small monuments were gone within three weeks and found their new homes, creating a peaceful and touching action.
Fernando Sanchez Castillo, Expanded Memorial. Installation view, No, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien in Berlin, on view through July 6. Image courtesy of Meduza.
Nina: Censorship is an important part of any authoritarian government. How is it affecting the visual arts in Russia today?
IK: Russia is a full-fledged dictatorship. This dictatorship destroys any dissent and uses hatred to pit different parts of society against each other. You can go to prison not only for speaking out against the war or Putin, but also, for example, for supporting the queer community. Every artistic gesture beyond censorship is also a gesture of incredible civic courage.
A.B.: The art scene is, of course, not as free as before. There is a lot of propaganda art that is being produced. However, the artists, curators, and other activists are still trying to find ways to express themselves while maintaining personal security. The messages are ciphered and subtle, but they exist. I won’t give examples — again, for security reasons — but one can still see theater plays, exhibitions, and independent movies that are trying to document the present, analyze the past, and carefully look into the future using the language of metaphors.
Installation view, No, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien in Berlin, on view through July 6. Image courtesy of Meduza.
Nina: What is the role of the artist when facing authoritarianism, and what is the role of the curator?
IK: I have friends who continue to work in Russia and engage in non-political art: they make films,write and publish books on abstract and permitted topics. They were engaged in non-political art even before the onset of real censorship and before Russia’s attack on Ukraine. In these inhumane conditions, they pulled out a lucky lottery ticket: the world around them has changed, and they don’t owe it anything.
For those who remain in Russia, the opportunity not to be part of the authorities’ cultural policy is indeed a great stroke of luck. But I don’t think that one can remain in this invulnerable position for long.
Hungarian movie director István Szabó painstakingly explored the relationship between an artist and a totalitarian society using Nazi Germany as an example. Following Szabó, I suggest that an artist in a totalitarian or authoritarian society cannot remain neutral. We know from history that any artist, falling into the gravity of such a regime, is forced to determine their place in space. Any uncertainty leads to the artist merging with the regime. The regime simply sucks them in.
However, Szabó also raises another uncomfortable topic: What would happen to us if we found ourselves in these circumstances? Can we be so sure of ourselves that we can judge others?
I am outside Russia and outside censorship, and I have the luxury of being able to speak freely. It is impossible to live and work in constant opposition to authoritarianism, but this is not required of an independent journalist, artist, or curator. It is enough, in my opinion, to observe and honestly capture what is happening around you; to speak the truth. People inside Russia pay for this opportunity with their careers, freedom, and lives. This is an opportunity that should not be underestimated.
A.B.:The most important role of art is to inspire its perceivers, its viewers. Artists raise questions and viewers look for answers. And artists are free. Art is about instigating conversations and being critical about things that you don’t like, be they right-wing or left-wing. As an artist, you’re allowed to express your own opinion. And as a curator, that’s my principle. Artists always get carte blanche. Together, we need to discuss the uncomfortable, the unspoken, shed light, and inspire critical thinking — to draw society’s attention to complicated matters.
Sergei Prokofiev, Project Hell, 2015–present, Donetsk Airport Control Tower, 2015. Installation view, No, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien in Berlin, on view through July 6. Image courtesy of Meduza.