Museums · 2025
The exhibition “Oleg Tabakov. The fate of a passionate man”
Museums / The exhibition “Oleg Tabakov. The fate of a passionate man”
About the project
Content and software for eight installations at the exhibition marking Oleg Tabakov’s 90th birthday at Zaryadye: interviews with his students, a bar-cum-cinema, Oblomov’s sofa, an old TV set showing cartoons.
On 7 August 2025 the exhibition “Oleg Tabakov. The fate of a passionate man” opened at the Media Centre in Zaryadye Park — the first event of the jubilee programme for the actor’s 90th birthday. The exhibition was prepared by the Oleg Tabakov Theatre with the support of the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives and with the participation of Gosfilmofond, Soyuzmultfilm and Mosfilm. The design of the 800 m² exhibition was handled by its general contractor.
We produced the content and software for eight interactive installations: we filmed and edited interviews with Tabakov’s students, compiled clips from his films and cartoons for the bar, Oblomov’s sofa and the old TV set, animated the interactive wall, and prepared the sound for the audio handsets, the radiogram and the letters. Our commissioning specialist worked on site for a week before the opening.
Year
2025
Industry
Museums
Scope of work
8 interactive installations: 5 programs, 8 videos, 18 audio recordings
Venue
Media Centre, Zaryadye Park, Moscow
- 8
- interactive installations
- 18
- interviews with Tabakov’s students
- 07.08.2025
- exhibition opening
The task
The scripts for the installations came from the client. From them we had to make the videos, audio recordings and software, link them to sensors, buttons and props — the sofa, chairs, the TV set, the radiogram, paint rollers — and have everything running by the opening on 7 August.
What we did
“Students”
A drama school classroom: in the centre, a box of tubes and stools; on the walls, life-size projections. The visitor sits on a chair, and on the wall opposite Tabakov’s students take turns talking about him. There are three interactive chairs, each with its own set of storytellers. We organised the chroma key shoot — five shooting days from 17 June to 1 July 2025 — and edited the stories of eighteen students, among them Vladimir Mashkov, Yevgeniy Mironov, Sergey Bezrukov, Marina Zudina, Sergey Gazarov, Irina Apeksimova, Sergey Ugryumov, Vitaliy Yegorov, Yana Sekste and Pavel Tabakov. We programmed the chair sensors.
“The Man from the Boulevard des Capucines”
The bar from the film. On the counter is a “menu” with five “cocktail” buttons: “Moscow Tear”, “Milky West”, “Mechanical Piano”, “My Star”, “Quadrille”. Each one plays a clip from a film starring Tabakov on the projection behind the counter: “Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears”, “The Man from the Boulevard des Capucines”, “An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano”, “Shine, Shine, My Star”, “Quadrille”. We cut the clips and made the attract screen “Cinema masterpieces on our bar menu — choose and watch!”, the graphics and the software for the buttons.
“A Few Days from the Life of I. I. Oblomov”
A room with Oblomov’s sofa and a framed projection. The sofa has a presence sensor: when a visitor sits or lies down, a scene from Nikita Mikhalkov’s 1979 film plays on the wall along with a fact about the shooting; move to another spot and the next scene begins. There are five scenes — from the one where Zakhar tries to wake Oblomov to the scene with Ilyinskaya in the gazebo.
“Three from Prostokvashino”
An old TV set on a table in the “house” from the cartoon. The visitor turns the dial, and the TV shows one of three “channels” with clips from cartoons voiced by Tabakov, or the video “Three from Prostokvashino and the voice the whole country knows”. We edited the videos and made the graphics and the software with the dial sensor.
“Tabakov’s theatres” interactive wall
A projection onto an aged brick “wall” with scaffolding. The visitor runs a paint roller or brush over it, and photographs, texts and drawings appear in the “painted” areas — seven chapters of Tabakov’s path to his own theatre: “Sovremennik”; the basement theatre — “Tabakerka”; 1987; the Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre; the Oleg Tabakov Theatre School; the new stage on Malaya Sukharevskaya Square (2016); and the finale, “Oleg Tabakov is 90! Thank you, master!”. We made the graphics and animation and the software that links the rollers to the projection, and set it up on site.
“Inside the theatre”
The “First Studio” hall, with wooden benches instead of seats. By the benches are audio handsets: the visitor picks one up and listens to the memories of the actors and of Tabakov himself about the theatre. We prepared three audio recordings — cleaning up the sound, editing and mixing.
“Audio plays”
A radiogram in the radio drama hall: the records carry tags, each starting its own recording of a radio play featuring Tabakov. We prepared the recordings and the sound of radio interference, and programmed the tags.
“Letters of N. I. Sukhostav”
Five audio recordings — letters by Tabakov and by his first teacher, Natalya Iosifovna Sukhostav, head of the Young Guard drama club at the Saratov Palace of Pioneers.
How it is built
Five programs — one for each installation with interactivity: the bar, Oblomov’s sofa, the TV set, the wall, “Students”. Eight videos and eighteen audio recordings.
Everything is tied to the props: a presence sensor in the sofa, sensors in the chairs, five buttons in the bar “menu”, the TV’s channel dial, tags on the radiogram’s records, rollers and brushes at the interactive wall, and audio handsets by the benches.
The videos are 1920×1200. The student interviews are vertical, 1200×1920: a full-length figure against a dark background.
A single style for the attract screens: a dark background, yellow pools of light, stills in round frames.
Result
The exhibition opened on 7 August 2025 and ran at the Media Centre in Zaryadye Park until 5 October. Oblomov’s sofa featured in Channel One’s report on the opening.
