Mediated by virtual modes of representation, our optic for perception of nature itself has been reshaped by media technologies and big data. The planet is gradually becoming digitized, trans­formed into a geospatial information system, while reality becomes augmented.

There are approximately twenty thousand species of bees in the world, yet many have nearly vanished in recent decades. Their decline carries potentially irreversible consequences — from the loss of roughly one-third of our food supply and numerous medicines to the severe impoverishment of flora without pollination.

At the core of the Earthly / Planetary exhi­bition at the Volga-Vyatka Branch of the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin (Arsenal) lies the perception of Earth as a unified, multilayered system wherein the humans are just one link in a complex chain of interactions. The project pro­poses two focal points for engaging with today’s environmental challenges. On the one hand, the artists rise to the scale of the planetary, while on the other, they zoom in on the material, corporeal, earthly, and local.

Clean Energy is a special project developed for the Mayak Academy within the framework of the First International Biennale of Environ­mental Art. Bringing together kinetic sculp­ture, light installation, painting, and video art by artists of different generations, the exhi­bition explored how major scientific break­ throughs — whether in the mid­-twentieth century or today — continue to inspire artistic practice, offering new tools and expanding the thematic horizons of contemporary art.

As part of the International Biennale of Environ­mental Art in Nizhny Novgorod, artists Danya Pirogov and Anastasia Sonina presented their project Field. Pirogov created a series of tempo­rary art objects, Towers, in two locations. First is the Strelka, an area that marks the sites of the river port’s former concrete warehouses.

The Volga-Vyatka Branch of the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin (Arsenal) presents the Dreams of Home exhibition, which explores the concept of home as a key phenomenon for understanding humanity.

On August 18, the Air project will open — a collaborative initiative with the Zen platform as part of the First International Biennale of Environmental Art in Nizhny Novgorod. Works by prominent artists Ashesteen, Maksim Ima, Misha Most, Anatoly Akue, Nootk, Konstantin “ZMOGK” Danilov, and Dima Retro will appear on building façades, city bridges, and in public parks.

Assemblage of Complexity is an interdisciplinary exhibition and research project, conceived as part of the special program of the First International Biennial of Environmental Art and developed for the Mayak Academy.

The special project Fragile Layer brings together four initiatives by leading Nizhny Novgorod galleries at the Russian Museum of Photography. The program is complemented by the exhibition Fog at Studio Tikhaya.