Autoethnography and legitimacy strategies: Nikolai Sednin House-Museum as a model of a self-organized art institution in contemporary Russia

Based on the autoethnographic method, the article explores the phenomenon of a private artist’s house-museum as a key element of Russia’s self-organized artistic infrastructure. Using the example of a complex event – the anniversary exhibition of Dmitry Sanjiev “Myths of the Planet”, combined with a large-scale award ceremony – the author analyzes strategies for constructing legitimacy, social capital, and alternative hierarchies in the field of contemporary art. The aim of the work is to identify operational models that allow private institutions not only to survive but also to effectively influence the artistic process, forming their own networks of recognition. Four key strategies are examined in detail: the synthesis of artistic and social ritual, the production of an “expanded event” through media, the formation of a “dense node” of professional connections, and the construction of a public narrative of significance. In conclusion, a conceptual model of a “field integrator” describing the function of such museums is proposed, and practical conclusions for curators and researchers are formulated, relevant in the context of the decentralization of cultural life and the search for new institutional forms.

1. Bourdieu, P. (2005), “The Field of Literature”, Sotsial’noe prostranstvo: polya i praktiki [Social Space: Fields and Practices], Gronas, M. (transl.), Shmatko, N.A. (comp., ed., and afterword), Institut eksperimental’noi sotsiologii, Aleteiya, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Russia, pp. 355–369.

2. Castells, M. (1996), The Rise of the Network Society (The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture), vol. I, Blackwell, Oxford, UK.

3. Chang, H. (2008), Autoethnography as Method, Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, CA, USA.

4. Efimova, O.V. (2022), “Private museum and museum activity”, Property Relations in the Russian Federation, no. 10 (253), pp. 36–40.

5. Ellis, C., Adams, T.E. and Bochner, A.P. (2011), “Autoethnography: An Overview”, Historical Social Research, vol. 36, no. 4, pp. 273–290.

6. Smirnov, A.V. (2021), “Social object: museum object in the participatory museum”, Bulletin of Saint Petersburg State University of Culture, no. 1 (46), pp. 126–132.