As part of the exhibition 18,000 Worlds by Saodat Ismailova in Eye Filmmuseum, the DAVRA collective presents the three programmes of films and videos by three generations of Central Asian artists. The programmes are curated by Dilda Ramazan.

Pioneers:

These are the artists who all started to experiment with video in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This is partly related to the fact that VHS cameras became widely accessible at this precise moment, influencing the practice of those authors who previously worked with painting, sculpture, collage or textile, making them turn massively to video as a medium. 

Politically speaking, the generation was marked by drastic changes, among which are the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and consecutive gains of the independence by each country forming the Central Asian region, as well as a switch in economic paradigm (collapse and the arrival of free market economy).

• Shai-Ziya, Untitled, 1994-1998

• Rustam Khalfin & Yulia Tikhonova, Northern Barbarians, part 2: Love Races, 2000

• Umida Akhmedova & Oleg Karpov, Hostages of Eternity, 2007

• Gulnara Kasmalieva & Muratbek Djumaliev, Something about Contemporary Nomadism, 2006

• Galim Madanov & Zauresh Terekbay, Difference, 2001

• Yerbossyn Meldibekov, Pastan on the Street, 2005

• Said Atabekov, Kazygurt, 2023

Independence: 

This generation regroups artists that were born in the late Soviet period, but as practitioners, they all came of age in the post-Soviet era. Quite often these authors were influenced or inspired by their predecessors from the previous generation, either because those were banally their parents or teachers/mentors, or because they were growing up seeing their work exhibited. In other words, these artists were aware of the presence of the first generation. 

As for political context, the representatives of this generation witnessed the formation of authoritative regimes in each Central Asian republic. The period of relative freedom of speech of the first post-Soviet years, that marked the previous generation, was brutally ended with this one.

• Gaisha Madanova, Presence. Physis, 2010

• Chingiz Aidarov, Snail (Spiral), 2021

• Assel Kadyrkhanova, All the Dreams We Dream, 2020

Future: 

These artists were all born in already independent Central Asian republics. They are the Internet generation, whose work is marked by the omnipresence of social media and the triumph of late capitalism. They live in a globalized Central Asia, meaning that these authors consider themselves as citizens of the world. That is one of the reasons why they have probably a smaller concern about their national identity, but a bigger one about the general state of the world and political freedoms. The representatives of this generation fully assume the authoritative nature of power in their home countries and so they try to reflect on it through their works.

• Dariya Temirkhan, Poppies, 2022

• Danil Usmanov, I am Walking on a Good Day, 2018

• Kamila Rustambekova, Ertak, 2022

• Roman Zakharov, Window, 2016