TOM THUMB

04.11 - 14.11.2024

What is the exhibition about? 

We are proposing an exhibition built around the animated film "Tom Thumb" that we created in the years 2017 - 2023, and which is now touring the world's animation festivals.  

The film is 26 minutes long and is hand-painted and handmade using the stop motion technique. The film is largely inspired by Finnish, Swedish and other Nordic artists and their aesthetics: Hugo Simberg, John Bauer, Theodor Kittelsen, Kai Nielsen, and others. 

The exhibition creates an insight into the world of film while telling about the techniques, contexts and artistic processes behind the creation. The gallery space is transformed into a theater-like place filled with objects and installations from the film. The film was created from the very beginning as a multidisciplinary project. Some of the exhibition objects come from the film production itself, some are created for the exhibition specifically. 

Biographies of directors - Nikolay Lichtenfeld, Ivan Kostiurin 

Nikolay Lichtenfeld and Ivan Kostiurin were both born in Saint-Petersburg and attended the same classes at school. After devoting themselves to painting and drawing for a time, they got enthusiastic about animated cartoons. They participated in the creation of the movie "The Sacred Man" by Roma Liberov, producing the episodes of animated cartoons. The movie was released in 2020. In parallel Nikolay and Ivan were working on "Tom Thumb", a manually animated cartoon. An animation machine with movable layers was made especially for this project. In 2022 Ivan moved to Finland. In the same year Nikolay produced a short black and white animated cartoon "The End" as a reaction to the war in Ukraine.