Cotton Wool Beard

Design and make New Year tree decorations that will become new family heirlooms.

Suitable for adults and children aged 6 and above.

To participate, please send an email to international@ges-2.org stating the number of tickets you require, the age of the child, and how you learned about the event. English translation will be available only between 12:00 and 13:00.

A porcelain bunny on a peg, multi-coloured baubles, cones with glittery sprinkles, shining stars made of beads and spangles. Which is the oldest New Year tree decoration in your family? Which is your favourite? Do you have any cotton-wool decorations stored away somewhere?

Illustratuon: Nadezhda Lichogrud

Cotton-wool angels, animals and snowflakes on wire frames appeared in Russia in the mid-nineteenth century and swiftly became more popular than expensive imported decorations: they were cheap and easy to make. In the Soviet period, angels were replaced by pioneers and cosmonauts, as well as birds and bears, snowmen and Father Frosts, mushrooms, berries and cucumbers—a Soviet New Year tree could hold a whole life!

At the New Year workshop at GES-2, artist Nadezhda Likhogrud invites us to return to the traditional technology of cotton papier-mâché, and to think about what kind of New Year tree decorations could reflect the modern world, to become new family heirlooms to be handed down from generation to generation.

Mediator

Nadezhda Likhogrud — an artist and sculptor. She began working in ceramics as a child, and later studied under sculptor Leonid Baranov and at the Moscow Surikov State Academic Institute of Fine Arts in the workshop of Alexander Rukavishnikov. She also graduated from the Kosygin State University, specialising in costume design, and from the Free Workshops school at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Nadezhda participated in many Russian and international exhibitions.