A-i-R: Movie Night | Saadat Aitalieva & Coraline Guilbeau

The international Artists­-in-Residence program is hosting a screening in collaboration with two residents, Saadat Ait, co-founder of the self-organized platform Bishkek School of Contemporary Art (BiSCA) in Kyrgyzstan and Coraline Guilbeau, a Brussels based artist who writes texts and creates performances in in-situ installations. 

The screening features works by Kyrgyz artists (Bermet Borubaeva, Art Group Strekooza, Kanaiym Kydyralieva) and Coraline Guilbeau’s extended performative work. The event will be followed by a discussion with authors. 

The event is free and in English.

 “North-South” | Bermet Borubaeva
3,5 minutes video it is a video-diary of one day-trip from South of Bishkek to the North. Covid-2019 brought out inequality among people and uncover deep social problems. Bishkek as a capital presents mixture of different city layers as microdistricts constructed mostly in Soviet times and self-trapped “Saman” Belt” (Self-made housing from adobe-bricks) appeared around Bishkek from USSR collapse. We go through Dordoi-market - one of the biggest market at Central Asia, it gives work everyday for several hundred thousand people and it is closed almost two months. There is no financial support from the government and now most of people who had one-daily-income out of the any borders normal existence just poor survival. Many of workers of Dordoi live in improper subdivision “Altyn Kazyk” that located between beautiful reservoir and the biggest city landfill site. The contrast it is not about urbanistic it is a reflection of social order, our conventions of inequality

Escape From Freedom | Art group “Strekooza” (Bermet Borubaeva, Nellya Djamanbaeva, Oksana Kapishnikova, Alima Tokmergenova, Diana Ukhina)
The film tells about the alpine birds golden eagles, which were previously used by the nomadic peoples of Central Asia as a bird for hunting. It was a whole art that was passed down from generation to generation, where the Berkuchi (hunter) and the golden eagle formed a single whole on the hunt and were equal partners. In capitalist conditions, there has been a change of values, where contrary to the centuries-old traditions of the unique connection between the hunter and the golden eagle, the connection between humanity and nature, “harmony in the past” is used for tourist profit, the balance is disturbed and the main goal is lucre. In such conditions freedom-loving birds turn into a living "showpiece" for photography with tourists, and if necessary, into a souvenir, and it doesn't matter whether it's alive or dead, as the client wishes.

HEAVENLY CITY | Kanaiym Kydyralieva 

Heavenly city is almost like Earth,
Concrete wells in the smog to the south and the north.
City of roads that is pretty and gritty.
Samosa, kebab, and three suns on graffiti.
Celestials walk along the banks of the road
Waiting for voyaging ships to reload.
Slow growing gardens and fast flying cars,
Posters and fences that look just like ours.
Upside-down fortunes. No water or air.
Some people hurt, some don’t really care. 
They are probably used to it. It could be worse.
But it’s hard to accept it for people from Earth.
In this heavenly city we feel lost and alone,
Though this heavenly city is almost like home.

On passe sa main dans celle de l’autre (= we pass our hand through the other’s) | Coraline Guilbeau
Film and performance created during the Ferme-Asile’s International Residency at Sion (CH), 2022, 29 minutes.
An extended performative work, based on a performance written in-situ, performed in a film and then reinterpreted live at the same location. The story told twice seems to be the same, but it’s just a feeling, as the repetition of a dysfunctional time, a time that is derailed in a space that is duplicated. The film’s dialogues ask us how we can be sure whether what we’re experiencing is real or not, how these doubts intrude on our memories, and engage in a reflection on the medium of performance.