Russian photographer Elena Chernyshova captures the street art of a factory town

On 3 June the annual Art Ovrag cultural festival opened in the Russian factory town of Vyksa, located 230 miles east of Moscow. Photographer Elena Chernyshova visited the town to discover its abundant, and perhaps surprising, street art.

Having grown up around an iron ore factory, which later modernised to produce steel pipes and train wheels, Vyksa is home to over 80 pieces of public art, which were the initiative of the company that owns Vyksa Steel Works in an attempt to foster the development of culture in the town.

Chernyshova visited Vyksa during the festival when she was invited by the Austrian Cultural Forum in Moscow to explore a Russian “factory city” as part of a broader exhibit entitled The Hope Principle.

“When I came to this town I couldn’t imagine that they had all of these interesting murals,” she confesses. “It’s not even on the main railway.”

The first Art Ovrag festival took place in 2011, after the company in charge of Vyksa Steel Works made a call for proposals for murals in 2010.

Source: Meduza (in Russian) and National Geographic