Darya Uspenskaya

There are not so many places in the world that can change the way you look at things, let alone life in general, and Art. Lebedev Studio definitely makes the list :)

When you come here, for some time you don’t even realize how much you have changed. But then, all of a sudden, you see that everything around you has fallen into place. Everything has become simple, clear and right—as it was in childhood. You feel that now you know the right way.

You used to have this big tangled ball in your head with things like "corporate culture," "status," and "creative approach," fragments of magazine ads, and crumpled banknotes sticking out of it, but after working at the studio it transforms into a neat and simple system of shelves. Everything you once held true and then ditched—simple truths like "if you do something, do it well," "treat others as you would like to be treated," "commas are important," etc.— are now on the foreground, and all the things that stuck out of the ball have disappeared. You walk through the city center and try to imagine how that boulevard or street looked a hundred years ago and how people were dressed instead of ogling cars parked near posh restaurants.

It is very much like the feeling that strikes you when come out of the cinema after watching a good movie—you feel that something in your head is changing. It’s just ten, or twenty, times more intense.