“I feel as if sheltered here”: Participants of the Krasnenkaya Biennale in a “marginal” urban space

Thе article presents the findings of a study of the Krasnenkaya Biennale, an annual open-air contemporary art exhibition held in a peripheral district of St. Petersburg on the banks of the Krasnenkaya River. The research aimed to examine the narratives that emerge around public urban space in the context of a temporary art project. The authors set out to identify how permanent and temporary users perceive and use this space; analyze how these narratives construct a symbolic boundary between the project’s participants and “the locals”; and explore the connection between these narratives and the structure of the contemporary art field in Russia.

The authors analyze interviews with biennale participants (artists and visitors) and local residents, as well as materials from participant observation conducted at the 2025 Krasnenkaya Biennale. The biennale site is perceived by all its users as dirty, dangerous, and peripheral. However, artists and visitors also describe this marginal space in “romantic” terms (as non-standard, “liminal”) and engage in symbolic territorial marking by creating an art “city” within it. Discursively, artists and visitors separate themselves from the negative characteristics of this place (standardized, marginal) and its permanent users, yet they simultaneously depend on it. Precisely this isolated space, shielded from the gaze of the state and the general public, enables the creation of the public sphere necessary for the existence of the artistic community.

Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical framework, the authors demonstrate

that the marginality of the Krasnenkaya Biennale’s venue becomes a resource for artists to legitimize their position within the field of contemporary art. The properties of this location signal the non-commercial, non-institutional nature of the art exhibited there, thereby endowing it with the status of “authentic”. At the same time, the characteristics of the community surrounding the Krasnenkaya Biennale protect artists from the risks associated with accumulating symbolic capital in the contemporary art field.

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