Penza, 20 August 2013. PenzaNews. The grand opening of the International Festival of Contemporary Art and Creative Technologies was held in the sculpture park “Legenda” in Mokshansky area, the Penza region on Tuesday, August 20.

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Welcoming the guests, the festival's president Konstantin Volkov promised that they will witness a number of interesting events.

“Before, only sculptors used to come and work in the park, this time great artists, filmmakers and designers will create their works here. In addition, the presentation of the technique of blind photographers, a gallery created for modern people will be opened. You will find many wonderful things,” he said.

Konstantin Volkov expressed the hope that the sculpture park “Legenda” will justify the expectations of the participants as a creative playground.

“We are doing everything so that a person would fill up with the energy of the wonderful here, got acquainted with the art, and perfected themselves. We strive to make our children leave their computers and spend sometime out with nature seeing how artists work,” the president of the International Festival of Contemporary Art and Creative Technologies explained.

In turn, a famous Russian gallery owner, art manager and publicist Marat Gelman, who was invited to the event as an honorary guest, said that he was very surprised by what he saw in the sculpture park “Legenda.”

“First of all, it is the right thing — internationality. In terms of art, Penza is relatively no different from Edinburgh because the artist is never asked about his registration, and the cultural heritage always belongs to the place. The second thing is the development of the territory through the art when it goes beyond the museum. I think that this trend will soon be central in Russia. We inherited thousands of cities from the Soviet period which are not intended for normal, comfortable life. These are sort of tracks from work to the place of residence. The task is to arrange the cities, to turn them into space for comfortable living. And the fourth thing which I would like to mention is the feeling of some creative commune, as far as I know, the largest in the country,” he shared his impressions.

According to Marat Gelman, the work on uniting creative people, conducted by the organizers of the international festival as a personal initiative deserves to be heard of, at least, in other regions of the Russian Federation.

“For sure, Russia does not have a larger residence, a bigger project funded by an individual, not the state. It embodies an interesting concept of development of the territory, when art communicates directly with the person. This may be turned into a wonderful, great place for the whole country,” he concluded.

As news agency PenzaNews reported earlier, the International Festival of Contemporary Art and Creative Technologies will last until September 10.

The event brings together 73 sculptors and painters from 29 countries of the world.

The festival is the successor of sculpture symposium “Autumn. Inspiration. Penza.” held under the aegis of UNESCO.