The International online exhibition “A City as a Writer’s Workplace” brought together 100 photographs and texts from writers and artists from around the world. The exhibition, organized by Ulyanovsk UNESCO City of Literature is presented in English and Russian.
The idea of the exhibition is to collect photographs and short texts telling about those places in the city where the authors like to write. The project helps to understand the writer’s relationship with a city and allows authors of different countries to know more about each other’s work. Photos are also supplemented with links to writers’ websites so that readers can familiarize themselves with the author’s texts. Initially, applications were only accepted from the UNESCO Literary Cities Network members, but authors from other cities also showed interest in the project, so the organizers expanded the exhibition.
“The online exposition includes photos from different parts of the world: Europe, Australia, Russia, New Zealand, the USA, Israel, the UK, South Korea, China, South Africa, and India. It is very curious to explore how the working conditions of the authors are changing today: some write at home at the desk, in a cafe or a garden, others sketch poems right on their smartphones, ride a bike or look for solitude in the writer’s residency. Some writers are inspired by the colours and sounds of the city. It turns out that many authors still write by hand. The Coronavirus has made changes in the writers’ work, and they told us about it in their texts. Authors miss the places to which the pandemic has closed access,” said Gala Uzryutova, an author of the idea and the exhibition curator, the “Ulyanovsk UNESCO City of Literature” program coordinator, poet, and writer.