Uzbek artist Vyacheslav Akhunov introduces Uzbek contemporary art to local audiences. Exhibition of Vyacheslav’s graphic and video work opened at Luda Gallery on February 10, 2014. He also participated in a discussion with Russian curator and specialist in Central Asian contemporary art Victor Misiano on February 12, 2015.
Aysel Amirova was born in Baku, Azerbaijan into a family of third-generation artists. She began by creating paintings and poetry and in 2007 she began to work in photography. In 2009 Aysel joined the Azerbaijan Photographers Union and in 2013 she graduated from the Azerbaijan State University of Culture and Arts as an artist/designer. In 2012 she entered the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts in London, where she studied batik technique and ceramics. She participates in exhibitions in her home country and abroad.
During her residency, Aysel planned to work “in the human environment” of Dushanbe (Tajikistan), to identify finer points of national and ethnic character and also to include the theme of architectural monuments, showing the transformation from ancient times to modern. By photographing daily life and its routine aspects step by step, the artist produced her own sort of photo-journal of reality.
Tigran Amiryan is an independent curator and contemporary culture researcher with a PhD in Literary Studies. He is interested in the issues of narrating individual and collective memory in contemporary culture, and studies narrative theory in relation to visually narrated texts. His research and curatorial projects combine an examination of the narration of personal/individual experience, artistic (fictional) representation of and stories about the self, and biography; and a focus on urban space and the environment, which preserve memories about people’s lives even as they are subject to constant neglect and decay.
During his residency, Tigran studied the dynamics of the development and disappearance of urban objects related to individual or collective memory. In particular, he proposed to identify how the memory of a multiethnic city is formed and functions, and which fragments of urban architecture reflect the identities of various religious and ethnic groups.
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Gamal Bokobaev was born and grew up in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. He is an architect, designer, artist, curator and culturologist. He has been a member of the Artists’ Union of the Kyrgyz Republic since 1996 and in 2008 he became editor-in- chief of its periodical publication. Since 2010, he has chaired the TOLON MUSEUM public foundation.
During his residence, Gamal researched residential districts in the central part of Dushanbe (Tajikistan) as the most typical “post-Soviet space” for gaining an understanding of the city. He studied their history, conducted graphic-analytical evaluations, and collected examples of informal citizen initiatives and the relationship between district inhabitants and commercial entities. His research resulted in the production of an art project and the organization of a seminar in which the artist presented his vision to the local community.
Oksana Chepelyk is a contemporary Ukrainian artist. She followed her studies at the Art Institute in Kyiv with post-graduate work in Moscow and Amsterdam University and new media studies at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Canada. She also completed a post-doctoral programme at the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany and a Fulbright Research Program at UCLA. She has exhibited widely internationally, including at MOMA (New York); ART FAIR (Stockholm); MCA (Zagreb); Deutsches Historisches Museum (Berlin); ISEA 2000 (Paris); Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna) and has received a number of prestigious international awards. In 2003 Oksana Chepelyk became leading researcher at the Modern Art Research Institute of Ukraine and since 2007 has been art-director of the International Festival of Social Sculpture. In her work Oksana uses installation,video, new media, performance, photography and public art. Her works raise problematic questions about the functioning of the social environments at a time of paradigmatic changes in the global world.
During her residence in Almaty, Oksana Chepelyk planned to continue her “City Code” research; the city as a neural network, the new nervous system of the urban landscape, requires identification of its words, signs and images. In Almaty, the artist intended to collaborate with local partners and communities to create her own vision of one of the eight districts of Kazakhstan’s cultural capital by video mapping the “City Code”. This work was presented in the public art programm of the annual Festival of Contemporary Art ARTBAT FEST, dedicated to the city of Almaty, its spirit and citizens.
Additionally, Oksana planned to give a lecture entitled “The International Festival of Social Structure and Other Researches into Urbanistic Practices” to Kazakh artists participating in the School of the Art Gesture and to organize together with the school a collective performance – an urbanistic gesture-intervention, turning it into a social sculpture project, engaging in a dialogue with the local citizens in the process of artistic creation.
Ruthie Jenrbekova is an artist, transfeminist, writer, and performer. Since 1997, she has been involved in various grassroots cultural undertakings. She and Maria Vilkovisky run the imaginary Creolex Center.
Nikita Kadan was born in Kyiv and graduated from the Painting Department of the National Academy of Fine Art and Architecture. A member of the R.E.P. group of artists and the Khudsovet curatorial and activist association, his works are in the collections of the Pinakothek der Moderne (Munich), M HKA (Antwerp), Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation (MUMOK) (Vienna), Military History Museum (Dresden), Krasnoyarsk Museum Centre and Galeria Arsenal (Bialystok).
Nikita’s work has also been exhibited at the Kunsthaus in Zurich, Museum of Contemporary Art (Antwerp), Castello di Rivoli-Museo d’ Arte Contemporanea (Turin), Palazzo Reale (Milan) and Zamek Ujazdowski( Warsaw). He also participated in the 14th Istanbul Biennale and the 56th Venice Biennale (Ukrainian pavilion).
Dinara Kanybek-Kyzy has been working in the sphere of urban planning since 2015. Her main field of activity is applied urban researches, work with communities. In 2016 she curated the School of Applied Urbanistics – an interdisciplinary experimental educational programme. Her chief interest is in environmental design as a tool for planning, relationships, behavior, value systems, new meanings for the citizen-users. She was a participant in the creative group 705 from 2011-13. At present, she is a student/participant in the ArtEast School of Contemporary Art. She lives and works in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
During the residency, together with the host organization, Dinara planned to develop a public program focused on recent urban transformations in the post-socialist cities of Central Asia, with particular attention to the pedestrian areas (the concept of a walkable city) in the central part of Chisinau but also in local neighborhoods.
Lado Lomitashvili lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia. He was studying in the Architecture Faculty at Tbilisi State Academy of Arts (TSSA). He works in a range of techniques and media: painting, photography, book illustration, sculpture and installation. In his abstract works, architecture and product design are substantial elements. His functionless sculptural objects stress their own roles and structures. He mostly works with materials like iron, wood and fabric. Lado has been a regular participant in exhibitions both in Georgia and abroad in recent years.
With his architectural background and a special interest in the public space, Lado was interested in getting acquainted with Kazakhstan, its culture, and historical architectural and spatial artefacts in close collaboration with the local community. As an emerging artist, he also considerd it very important to engage in an exchange of experience with colleagues at an international level.
A seamstress, artist, queer-feminist, and grassroot activist, Antonina Melnyk works with textiles and clothing and engages in theatrical activities and performance. Antonina’s practice is focused on non-alienated, fairly-priced labour; the alternative economy as a tool against exploitation of women; and investigation of discriminatory practices. She also works with the idea of re-thinking and re-appropriating cultural, historical, and social traditions.
Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, Antonina graduated from Kyiv National University of Technology and Design and studied contemporary art in Kyiv and St. Petersburg. In 2015, she co-founded the Shvemy sewing cooperative (Kyiv – St. Petersburg). In 2016, she joined the ReSew sewing cooperative in Kyiv. Antonina collaborates with her fellow artist Mariia Lukianova.
Artist Meka Muratova works in video and new media. She explores themes of social change, nationalism and identity, post-Soviet and Central Asian culture, and cultural and natural heritage.
During her residency, Meka worked on a video project and participated in a public discussion on the issues of contemporary Tajik national identity.
Victoria Myronyuk is an interdisciplinary artist, performer and theater maker from Ukraine. She graduated from the Department of Culture of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kyiv, master’s program of Contemporary Stage Practice in Madrid (MPECV) and postgraduate program in artistic research in Brussels (A.PASS). Victoria’s works are mostly interdisciplinary projects at the intersection of performative, participatory and visual art practices which examine the issue of ritual structures, their boundaries and potential.
During the residency at GeoAIR, Victoria dedicated her time to the exploration of everyday urban rituals, their collection, and description. She focused on individual and collective repetitive proceedings that are part of the city routine and which compose the unique performative constellation of Tbilisi. Based on her findings, the artist intended to create a systemized table of requisites from every ritual as well as an excursion that embraced some of the found performances.
Nini Palavandishvili was born and grew up in Tbilisi, Georgia. After graduating from the Faculty of Public and Industrial Communication at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), in 2006 she joined the GeoAIR (GeoAIR) artistic initiative in Tbilisi. In her own projects Nini studies social and political contexts and their interpretation in the spheres of culture and contemporary art. She is interested in artistic practices that give rise to innovative forms and an artistic language that makes it possible to speak about political and social matters.
During her residency in Bishkek, Nini organized a series of encounters and master classes, visited various institutions, and produced an artistic view of the city and its self-representation. She often uses the methods of ethnographic fieldwork in her projects to obtain a better insight into little-known places and establish contact with local communities. This approach, on the one hand, enabled Nini to see the city from its inhabitants’ point of view, to learn what makes them tick, and, on the other hand, it became a basis for future projects such as an alternative guide to the city or a festival of public art.
Alexandru Raevschi is an independent artist and curator. In his artistic activities, he explores questions of social life and interaction with the political system, using artistic actions, painting, sound and photo/video installation. This results in situational and contextual projects that create forms of intervention in the public realm, as well as exhibition spaces, acts of translation and archiving. His recent research projects focus on the politics of invisibility, the search for a national identity by individual social groups and their reaction to changes of psychology under the influence of the contemporary paradigm.
During the residency, Alexandru focused on studying the “other Bukhara”, specifically how the Soviet architectural legacy influenced the deconstruction of the city’s traditional type of public space. It was necessary to delineate the boundaries of the historical capital through photographic research. It should be noted that the direction of the project correlated with the formation of social communication within the local community. The artistic research was used to create a multimedia exhibition project.
Khurshed Rasulzoda is a Tajik artist and theatrical designer. He collaborates with the Mayakovsky Russian Dramatic Theatre in Dushanbe. In 2014 he participated in the international BeArt project. He currently works primarily with video and photography.
During his residency, Khurshed planned to create a video and photo project with the participation of the residents of the Botanica district of Chisinau about the life of the neighborhood. The artist involved local people and documented the way that a person without artistic training or specialist knowledge could describe his or her life using artistic means. The result was the creation of a presentation using video and photo material. The most active participants received portraits of themselves made by the artist.
Antonina Slobodchikova was born in Minsk, Belarus. She works in a variety of media, including spatial installation, video, ready-mades and objects. Using materials from everyday life, she explores the themes of death, memory, and the representation of female experience. She has taken part in many exhibition projects in Belarus, Lithuania, Poland and Germany.
Antonina was especially interested in exploring the historical context of the city of Bukhara, the influence of the geographical and political context on art, meetings and exchange of experience with colleagues from other countries and the art community. She planned to create an installation based on her experience in the residence.
Olia Sosnovskaya is an artist-researcher based in Minsk, Belarus. She works with text, performance and visual practices. She has an interest in questions of celebration, pleasure and politics; body, dance, gender and post-colonial studies. Olia is a co-organizer of the annual initiative ‘WORK HARD PLAY HARD,’ a series of tours, lectures, performances, talks, workshops and parties, exploring contemporary notions of work, leisure and technology.
During her residency in Yerevan, Olia studied the local context, researching the local electronic/club scene, related bodily and choreographic practices and their political aspects, including post-colonial and gender issues. This developed into artistic work produced with local participants. While in Yerevan she also planned to establish new connections with local artists with an eye to potential future collaborations. She also gave a public talk on the works of contemporary Belarusian female artists relating to issues of gender, sexuality and corporeality, as well as presenting her ongoing artistic research project on the political side of celebrations.
Diana Ukhina lives and works in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan). She is a curator and director of Laboratoria C – a space for the production of art and meanings and interdisciplinary research. She is a cultural worker who represents a feminist perspective and focuses on the history and theory of culture, urban exploration, gender theory, visual culture and contemporary exhibition practices.
During her stay, Diana planned to concentrate on researching the transformation of urban space in Kyiv from a post-Soviet viewpoint.
Vladimir Us is an artist and curator based in Chisinau, Moldova and a founding member of the Oberliht Young Artists Association. He studied art, curating, cultural management and cultural policy in Chisinau, Grenoble and Belgrade. His work examines the processes involved in the transformation of public space in post-Soviet cities along with the need for creating an alternative network of public spaces in Chisinau.
Vladimir planned to insert himself into a local context in Bishkek and proposed holding an open workshop for the wider public and participants in the ArtEast School. The residency included a series of meetings with cultural and civic figures, artists, architects, urban planners and green movement representatives, film screenings and presentations, public actions and events in the city.
Koka Vashakidze is a contemporary artist based in Tbilisi, Georgia. The range of his work is extensive, from site-specific pieces to media installations. He explores the aesthetics of socio-cultural relations. Since 2013 he has been a co-editor of the art magazine Caucasus ArtMag.
During his Baku residency, Koka planned to create a media installation in the form of an Android app with the aim of bringing the community together around the common urban problem of traffic issues. He then presented data generated by users of the app to representatives of the city administration and other influential figures in order to improve the traffic situation in Baku.
Born in Luhansk, Ukraine, Oleksandr Yeltsin now lives and works in Kyiv. A major part of his creative work involves participatory art practices. Oleksandr researches topics that interest him through dialogue and interaction. For him the process is no less important than the result. In his works he uses photography, video, audio and text.
Oleksandr did his research in Baku by taking walks, either alone or with a companion. In the first case, the main purpose is to perceive the city from scratch, without anyone else’s commentaries. The artist himself decided what was interesting and where to go. In the second type of walk, the companion chose the route. Through a dialogue with his companion, the artist learned about the city’s past, present, and possible future.
The people who accompanied Oleksandr on the walks were be from different fields of life with different knowledge. The dialogue was meant to be free and spontaneous. Oleksandr also intended to make a number of artistic utterances based on his observations and the knowledge he acquires of the city. These took the form of interventions in a public space, photo and video works.
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