Day One -- Thursday -- 19 September 2024
Departure Location: University of Central Asia, Central Administration Office, Bishkek
Arrival Location: Khan Tengri Hotel, Naryn
Location: UCA Campus Lobby
Location: UCA Campus Dining Hall
The talk explores the intricate process of establishing and maintaining an artist-run platform dedicated to developing critical discourse in Central Asian arts, film, and theory. The platform’s primary mission is to cultivate a vibrant space for intellectual exchange, artistic exploration and talent support. Offering a behind-the-scenes look at the platform’s journey, the speakers draw on its unique position within the Central Asian arts landscape and the challenging but exciting navigation of the region’s cultural, political, and social dynamics to carve out its distinctive niche.
Join Online
- Webinar ID: 875 0542 2499
- Passcode: 029991
- 17:30-17:35 -- Official Opening by Dr Elmira Kuchumkulova, Associate Dean, UCA Naryn Campus
- 17:35-17:45 -- Introductory Remarks by Dr Sascha Priewe, Director of Collections & Public Programs at the Aga Khan Museum
Artists: Michael Garbutt, Soheil Ashrafi & Sehar Naz Janani
When the future seems to belong exclusively to the city, how do the residents of Dobolu, a remote Kyrgyz mountain village, experience daily life and maintain their deep connections to nature? This exhibition at Naryn AS Art Gallery offers a window into Dobolu’s everyday life, its places, its people, and the connections between them. In one room, a multimedia installation immerses visitors in the landscape and presents portraits of the residents we met. In another room, located in front of the yurt that is part of the gallery’s permanent collection, a living room table is set with the foods and beverages typically offered to guests in village homes. Visitors are invited to join Dobolu residents at the table and view a photographic slideshow that highlights the haunting everyday aesthetics of domestic life. From October 2024, the geo tagged photographs can also be viewed on Google Maps.
In Night Journey, the medium of film transcends the boundaries of cinematic conventions and the script. This work invites the audience to engage with the film on an imaginative level, where minimal dialogue dissolves into a night sound and imagery is only to enrich an auditory experience akin to the recitation of a poem. As the car travels through the landscape, night itself becomes the subject, where the interplay of sound and light—two fundamental elements of cinema—carries the weight of the narrative. Here, the filmmaker’s connection with the audience is distilled to its purest form, relying on the delicate balance of what is seen and heard, inviting viewers to lose themselves in the mystery of night and the human condition.
Seed Forms transports viewers to the mountainous landscape of Pamir, at the source of the Panj River, which divides Tajikistan and Afghanistan. There, artist Sabina Khorramdel and Zeny Ogrisseg—a yogini, chant leader, and mystic of sound—performed a collaborative ritual to heal cultural suppression in the region and honor its ancient spiritual traditions. This installation captures Ogrisseg chanting primordial universal syllables that flow along the river to the Wakhan Corridor. The soundscapes feature mantras from the Tibetan Bön tradition, believed to have originated in a land called Tagzig (a name thought to be an early form of Seed Forms Sabina Khorramdal | Tajikistan “Tajik”). Khorramdel meditates on these sounds and translates them into another dimension through abstract painting. Her easel draws inspiration from traditional Central Asian timber door portals adorned with intricate vegetative motifs and solar imagery from the Badakhshan region. The muslin canvas, serving as a symbolic threshold, invites contemplation of transcendence and a journey into an inner, intuitive, and metaphysical realm.This multi-sensory experience immerses viewers in the land of Pamir, inviting them to connect with the sacred vibrations of the region’s spiritual heritage.
