Sergei Tchoban, Alexandra Sheiner, and Elizaveta Borisova (CHART studio) designed the exhibition layout for the “Wild Field” exhibition at the State Historical Museum. The exhibition is multimedia, comprehensive, and dedicated to the Eurasian nomads in the broadest sense of the term. Its task is to go beyond the boundaries of the archaeological narrative that usually accompanies nomadic cultures, and to vividly show, or perhaps to make one even feel what the “great steppe” of the past centuries was like. The title of the exhibition itself, “Wild Field” outlines the place, as if pointing to the territories of the Black Sea and Azov steppes, but the composition of the exhibition also includes nomads from the Caspian region, Kalmyks, Uzbeks, and Kazakhs, thus expanding the exhibition’s geography. The range of exhibits is also wide: from paintings, books, and ethnography to archaeology – spanning approximately 2000 years.

The “ingredients” of the exhibition needed to be united by a common context that would emotionally “bind” them together; this is a common task for modern multimedia shows that immerse the viewer almost into a three-dimensional cinema. This, however, is not a multimedia show – it is still an exhibition. The items are genuine and valuable, so it was necessary to strike a balance between emotional immersion and showcasing the value, and, in some cases, the preciousness, of individual items. To unite and complement, but not to cross the line into making a show.

I think the authors managed not to cross that line and managed to keep the purity of the style.

On the one hand, CHART turned the walls of each hall into a picture – and on the other hand, in contrast to the Vrubel exhibition, which also featured a dynamically active design, they made all the forms not angular, but rounded, steppe-like, resembling sand dunes and yurts. The latter allowed to “blend” the space of all the halls, and the former works quite well for immersion. In any case, the entrance corridor with its dramatically torn cylindrical vault, covered with an enlarged print of a photograph by Zakhar Vinogradov, supplemented by a rough, almost granular texture, creates the effect as if entering the corridor of a burial mound. But it is precisely here that items from the 20th century are presented.