How we are working in the post-quarantine environment | GARAGE, July 2020

HOW WE ARE WORKING IN THE POST-QUARANTINE ENVIRONMENT

Since June 16, our exhibition spaces, library, café, and bookshop have reopened to the public, and Garage Screen summer cinema is about to follow in the next few weeks. However, the visiting experience for the audience, as well as the working conditions for the Garage team, have visibly changed under the ongoing pandemic, revealing a new, slightly dystopian image of a public space. All visitors are asked to wear masks and are provided with single-use ones if they don’t have any; automatic sanitizers are present around the building; the number of exhibition visitors is regulated through the introduction of a session system; tables in the café and the library have been rearranged to maintain the safety zone of 1.5 m. Team members work strictly in masks and have their temperature measured before the start of their working day. All spaces are disinfected on a daily basis.

How does it feel to communicate with real people again, while being asked to maintain distance? What is it like to have to think about such additional requirements and responsibilities in the workplace? Our frontline colleagues comment on their first weeks back at Garage:

Evgeniya, ticket desk:
Due to the new safety restrictions, we can only allow a limited number of visitors to the exhibition spaces at each session. The first week was a bit slow, however already during the second one, we have almost reached our established limit. People seem to be happy to get back to their social routines, such as a museum visit. I am also very glad to be around my colleagues again. It feels a bit strange to see their faces half-covered all the time, but you can recognize a friendly face even under a mask anyway.

Olga and Zhanna, tour guides:
The exhibition areas underwent some specific changes. The floor and benches have been marked to maintain safe distances between visitors. We have a few interactive objects at the current shows, such as books and albums. They are now under glass so that people cannot touch them. The exhibition texts have been supplemented with their online versions that visitors can access through QR codes and read on their phones.
O: I personally love how quiet the Museum has become nowadays, it is a rare treasure to be able to spend time around art on your own.
Zh: True, and for me, it is much more comfortable to work in such an environment. No fuss, the artworks can “breathe.” I am not a big fan of working in a mask, but I have got used to it now.
O: But to be honest, working in masks is not that easy for the guides. Since you cannot see the visitors’ facial expressions, you lose the personal touch a bit. You also need to speak much louder under the mask.

Alexandra, Garage Café manager:
We started to work in two stages. First, we opened the terrace and a week later, the main space. In the beginning, our guests were cautious of being indoors and always preferred the terrace, but now it is more even. We are located in the park, and the weather is great, so almost every day, we reach our seating capacity. And we are incredibly happy to be back, we missed our guests a lot during quarantine.

Olga, Garage Bookshop manager:
Actually, we never stopped working, as our online store was operating during quarantine. And we were the first ones to open offline a few days before the Museum. The number of visitors is visibly growing: we had four times more purchases over the second week compared to the first. We have also noticed some changes in our clients’ behavior: they are less open for conversation and buy more cautiously, making less impulsive decisions. They also try to avoid crowded situations and keep a distance, which I think is great considering the virus! And I think there is an interesting benefit to wearing masks—when half of the face is covered, it brings out its prettiest part—the eyes.

Valery, chief librarian:
Currently, one has to book a visit to the library in advance, and this is limited to two hours. Such a scheme helps us to admit as many people as possible, as the safety requirements allow for no more than fifteen visitors at a time. This feels quite adequate. During the first weeks, we had five or six people per session. We ask everyone to wear individual means of protection, gloves are especially important since we deal with printed matter. The library has always been a quiet space, but these first post-quarantine days feel like it’s a lazy Sunday afternoon when people are outdoors or reading, but at home. And we do encourage reading at home, especially in these times—we have even posted some lists of recommended online texts.

Slava, film program assistant, Garage Screen:
The cinemas in Moscow are still closed, but this regulation should be dropped around early August. We support these necessary safety measures entirely but are also quite anxious to finally see the unveiling of this year’s new cinema pavilion designed by snkh architectural studio. It is a superb construction—an “inside-out” marquee that brings outside the supporting structures and is covered inside with a white membrane. On the practical side, it was designed to welcome more visitors, but in fact, we will admit fewer to maintain safe distances. It is also equipped to screen 35mm films, as we are introducing a program devoted to analog cinema. This program, showing films that were meant to be watched specifically in cinemas, feels ever so acute after a long period of watching movies online.

Alex, Inclusive Department coordinator:
There is no doubt that coronavirus affected our programs and communication methods with the audience. For instance, tactility, as one of the main ways of knowing the world by blind and partially sighted people, is prohibited. That is why we are forced to create new means of communication—use other materials and formats, and pay more attention to individual visitors.

NEWS

GARAGE SCREEN

Our summer cinema Garage Screen opens in early August. The new pavilion was designed by snkh architectural studio from Yerevan. The opening events will feature Russian premiers of Days by Tsai Ming-liang and Hong Sang-soo’s The Woman Who Ran, as well as the Moscow premiere of Pietro Marcello’s Martin Eden. This season of Garage Screen will include three new programs: Silver Prints showing analog cinema (made possible with our new 35mm projector), Happy Hours that brings together independent films beyond conventional timeframes, and One Time Only which will include a variety of movies that will not be in distribution in Russia. Garage Screen will also continue its collaboration with Beat Film Festival of documentaries and Moscow International Experimental Film Festival.

LECTURE MARATHON: CONTEMPORARY METROPOLISES AND MIGRATION FLOWS

On June 16, as a part of the Point of Displacement festival, Garage hosted an online marathon of lectures with speakers from Berlin, Hong Kong, London, Moscow, New York, New Delhi, Paris, and Istanbul. The marathon was an attempt to understand relationships among flows, communities, migration processes, urban spaces, and their inclusive or exclusive power in different megacities around the world. Point of Displacement is an annual festival dedicated to migration and forced migration held on World Refugee Day. The festival was co-organized by Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Moscow, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the educational project Neighbors’ Languages School, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the integration center Kids Are Kids.

GRANT FOR PUBLISHERS

Due to the pandemic, GARAGE ART BOOK FAIR has been moved to 2021. However, seeking to support local publishing community Garage, together with the Moscow office of Frankfurter Buchmesse, will launch financial grant programs aimed to help publishers finalize already started but as yet unfinished projects. Stay tuned for more details on Garage website.

CREDITS:Garage a few days after reopening, 2020. Photo: Anton Donikov © Garage Museum of Contemporary Art; Garage Bookshop a few days after reopening, 2020. Photo: Anton Donikov © Garage Museum of Contemporary Art; snkh studio, design for Garage Screen summer cinema, 2019 Courtesy of snkh; Museum for Beginners course, 2019. Photo: Anton Donikov © Garage Museum of Contemporary Art; Garage Art Book Fair, 2019. Photo: Maria Dyupovkina © Garage Museum of Contemporary Art