Universum Science and Arts Forum opens at Lobachevsky University

On March 30, the Universum Science and Arts Forum opened at Lobachevsky University. More than 400 participants from different Russian cities - Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Perm, Kaliningrad, Tomsk, Irkutsk, Gorno-Altaisk, Vladikavkaz and Nizhny Novgorod - took part in the first day of the forum.

UNN hosted a round table "Universities and Centres of Contemporary Art: Aspects of Interaction", moderated by Anna Gor, Deputy Director of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts for regional development, and Elena Shlienkova, Acting Dean of the UNN Higher School of Arts and Design; an open discussion "New faculty - new opportunities", and a "Consilium" - a conversation between an art critic, a doctor and an art collector on a piece of 17th century Dutch painting.

Also on that day, two cooperation agreements were signed between Lobachevsky University and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts and the Pushkin State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre of Nizhny Novgorod. The exchange of agreements with the two partner cultural institutions is a crucial event which will cement the cooperation that started in the development of UNN’s new unit, the Higher School of Arts and Design established in the autumn of 2022.

"The university is always moving, developing, implementing large-scale projects and plans, and the emergence of one more structural unit is always the start of a new history, the beginning of another university tradition. It is remarkable that such large-scale cultural centres of the federal level go hand in hand with us on this important path," said Oleg Trofimov, Acting Rector of Lobachevsky University.

The Universum Science and Art Forum is taking place in Nizhny Novgorod from March 30 to April 1, 2023 at three venues: Lobachevsky University, the Volga-Vyatka branch of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (Arsenal), and the Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The three-day forum programme includes podium discussions and round tables, lectures by leading experts in the field of Art&Science, workshops, curatorial tours, quests, a laboratory workshop, a session for young popularisers of science and art, a special music programme and much more. The forum is held as part of the Priority 2030 strategic academic leadership programme. The organisers of the forum are Lobachevsky University (Higher School of Arts and Design) and the Volga-Vyatka branch of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (Arsenal).