From May 21 to July 3, the "Third Place" cultural space, located in the historic Naryshkin mansion on Liteiny Prospekt in St. Petersburg, will be inhabited by ghosts brought to life in the imaginations of contemporary artists. As part of the site-specific exhibition "Monsters Under the Bed," the MaxArt Foundation for the Support and Development of Contemporary Art invited them to explore the theme of how childhood fears transform into states of anxiety, trauma, and obsessive thoughts through personal experience.

The world of childhood fears is populated by monsters and ghosts that hide under the bed, in the closet, and in dark corners, appearing only in the dark when adults cannot see them. Imaginary monsters, along with fairy-tale characters, are a frightening yet integral part of a child's view of the world.

As we grow up, we either unintentionally or deliberately forget our childhood fears. But while we may shed some fears, we often acquire new, adult ones that we don't always reflect on. Fear transforms into individual psychological experiences that not only accompany a person in their daily life but also influence their ability to make crucial decisions. What does fear mean to us today, and what tools for overcoming it seem most appropriate and effective? Artists from different generations, working in various genres and media, have sought to explore this theme in their works.

EXHIBITION PARTICIPANTS: Olya Avstreikh, Fedora Akimova, Stas Bags, Lyudmila Baronina, Kirill Basalaev, Andrei Berger, Liza Bobkova, Arseny Bobryshev, Evgenia Voronova, Katya Gerasimenko, Alisa Gorelova, Alexander Dashevsky, Irina Drozd, Maxim Ima, Sergei Kolosov, Ilya Kreidun, Katerina Lukina, Kirill Manchunsky, Asya Marakulina, Vadim Mikhailov, Evgeny Muzalevsky, Slava Nesterov, Masha Obukhova, Ruslan Polanin, Emilia Sangi, "Sever-7" (Nestor Engelke, Pyotr Dyakov, Ivan Chemakin, Alexander Tsikarishvili, Yan Shpecht, Anna Andrzhievskaya, Liza Tsikarishvili, Vadim Mikhailov), "Blue Soup," Polina Sinyatkina, Ivan Tuzov, Yegor Fedorichev, Polina Shkapina