About the project
Igor Samolet’s project «Little Sun» is a lighthouse tower erected on the roof of the Victoria Gallery. The architecture and light of the lighthouse will enter into a dialogue not only with the urban environment and the gallery’s architecture, but also directly with the viewer.
In this project, the artist turns to local memory. The work takes its title from the «Solnyshko» (Little Sun) café, which occupied the site of the present-day Victoria Gallery in the second half of the twentieth century.
Igor Samolet reinterprets this historical context, transforming «little sun» into «lighthouse». Both words denote sources of light. Both the sun and the lighthouse serve as guiding beacons. The same is said of art—not in physical space, but in cultural space. The artist literally turns the gallery into a lighthouse within the cultural landscape of the city, the region, the country.
Individual elements of the lighthouse recall the curved roof of the Wedding Palace on Polevaya Street and the factory chimneys of industrial Samara. By blending architectural solutions from different periods of Samara’s history, the artist creates a new architectural module—a spire clamped between two modernist «wings.»
The light of the lantern atop the spire is not static; it can pulse, converting text messages into Morse code signals. Viewers can send these messages through the chat window on the project’s page of the Victoria Gallery website. In this way, the viewer transforms from observer into co-author, animating not only the Volga River landscape but also memories.
The object’s «wings» are supplemented with bas-reliefs whose scenes reference sentimental moments from Igor Samolet’s time in Samara in March 2025. Thus he animates the strict architectural form and connects himself to the city, making the story of «Little Sun» more personal.
The object is located on the roof of a building on the Volga River bank and must account for wind force. Wind becomes part of the work. To withstand the wind, the object’s «wings» required technological openings that allow air pressure to pass through.
The diameter of these openings equals the diameter of a human heart—the artist thus imbued an engineering necessity with philosophical resonance. In his thinking, to withstand and to shine, one needs a heart.
City residents can see the light of «Little Sun» in any weather, even when the Gallery is closed.
About the artist
Igor Samolet is a Russian artist, born in 1984 in Kotlas. He graduated from Syktyvkar State University with a degree in graphic design and from the Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia. The artist works at the intersection of photography and installation.
The central theme of Igor Samolet’s work is human relationships. The artist is interested not in the superficial reasons for his subjects’ actions, but in the true nature of their desires. Extended work on projects allows him to achieve the necessary level of truthfulness and openness. In Samolet’s lens is contemporary human life, much of which today takes place online.
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Work schedule
Tue-Sun: 11:00–21:00