new now

NEW NOW is an international online platform for the exchange of ideas about and interpretations of reality and for research on the present moment. NEW NOW is a forum for dialogue, generating new meanings, and rethinking our relationship with ourselves in a changing world. The program is a response to the most vivid ideological transformations and challenges of modernity and an aid in the creation of our common future.

We live in an era of significant socio-cultural changes, transformation of generally accepted norms and ethical standards, and new challenges and threats. The world we are used to is becoming part of the past, and at such a pace that understanding what specifically is changing -- and more importantly, how we feel about it -- is getting harder and harder. The NEW NOW platform is dedicated to helping people make sense of what is going on in today’s world by calling on the experience and knowledge of leading modern thinkers.

Today, one of the most important roles undertaken by cultural institutions is work with the public perception of the surrounding reality and culture. NEW NOW, initiated by St. Petersburg’s Manege, will introduce a worldwide audience to the cultural context of modernity, with an accent on its contradictions. Our goal is not to find direct answers to difficult questions. Together with the invited speakers – cultural theorists, anthropologists, art curators, and expert practitioners in various spheres – we will attempt to understand what is occurring on the international stage and describe the transformation of role models and behavioral norms that is currently underway, right before our eyes.

Text: Anna Kirikova

“The future is already here — it is just not evenly distributed.”
(William Gibson, Interview with William Gibson and David Brin. NPR. 1999)

“The answer lies not in restricting human endeavors, but in evolving new alternatives, new possibilities, new dimensions, new options, and new avenues for creative uses of human beings based on the recognition of the multiple and unusual talents so manifest in the diversity of the human race.”
(Edward Twitchell Hall, Beyond Culture, 1976)

NEW NOW team:

Concept and programme -- Anna Kirikova
Director of Manege -- Pavel Prigara
Coordinators -- Olga Romanova, Aleksandra Larchenko
PR and communications -- Aleksandra Kovalyova
Technical director -- Viktor Bekrenyov
Research assistant -- Sofya Lavrova

NEW NOW partners:

The events are part of the international UK–Russia Creative Bridge programme 2021–2022 supported by the Cultural and Education Section of the British Embassy in Moscow.

Partner for Manege’s educational programme — The Mikhail Bazhenov Foundation.

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