Twin Fences

2024, film essay, 90 min

The attempt to answer the question “Who creates fences?” leads the artists to Boris Lakhman, the author of one of the greatest patents in Soviet history: the concrete fence with diamonds, known as the Lakhman Fence.

Originally designed under the influence of Malevich Suprematism just for military facilities during the Cold War, the Lakhman Fence has been used for the past 40 years to enclose kindergartens, schools, hospitals, stations, parks, cemeteries all over the post Soviet countries. In the early 1980s, its author, architect Boris Lakhman, received a gold medal for this Fence – and left the Soviet Union.

The authors have found Boris Lakhman, but he has refused to be the hero of the project, stating, “This fence is not the greatest thing I’ve done”. After such a refusal, the artists have decided to tell Boris Lakhman about his fences by themselves.

Gradually, what began as a scientific and artistic cataloging of the material fences, expanded into a broader exploration of the unsaid narratives, and behind the Lakhman Fence, the artists  have found hidden: the Bremer Fence, the Durand Fence, the Heselden Fence, the Rose Fence, as well as Venetian palazzos of the Renaissance, the Ottomanization of Paris, Chinese martial art Tai chi, Malevich's burnt bone, first sausage factory, the Virgin Mary on the heights by Le Corbusier, and Afghan war rug, turning collective and personal memories into a tangible, woven testimony.

director: Yana Osman
camera:Anton Khamchishkin, Peter Silvestrov
editing: Mikhail Bodukhin, Anton Khamchishkin, Yana Osman
music: Uri Lankin, Anton Khamchishkin
support: Andrey Silvestrov, Lyusia Artemieva