How can self-organised educational practices act as a lens for understanding Central Asia’s specific regional contexts?
This year, AAA’s Learning Contexts talk will examine how the Bishkek School of Contemporary Art (BiSCA) works to create new community models within arts and education in Kyrgyzstan. Set against the backdrop of post-Soviet Central Asia, BiSCA’s Co-founders Diana Ukhina, Bermet Borubaeva, and Kanaiym Kydyralieva share their experiences developing research and socially engaged projects in their country. Ukhina, Borubaeva, and Kydyralieva introduce their School of Artistic Research Methodology through their collective interventions in ecological and social justice, the institution of the state museum, and self-archival publishing. The talk extends their work to develop an epistemology based on local arts practices through the lens of the social and political sciences.
Anticipating our partnership with BiSCA for our upcoming Mobile Library in Kyrgyzstan, the public talk will facilitate connection between arts practitioners from Hong Kong with those in Central Asia.
Talk | Methodologies of Imagination: Field Notes from Kyrgyzstan
Sat, 9 Nov 2024, 11am–1pm HKT
CCG Library, Asia Art Archive
Speakers
Diana Ukhina, Bermet Borubaeva, and Kanaiym Kydyralieva, BiSCA
Respondents
Anthony Leung Po Shan, Island Studies Network (HK)
Yim Sui Fong, Rooftop Institute
Moderator
Susanna Chung, Asia Art Archive
Free and open to the public with registration.
There will also be a picnic sharing session hosted by MyLand Culture in Macau on Saturday, 16 November, at 4pm.
SATELLITE EVENTS
Workshop | Ala kiyiz: Kyrgyz Ornament and Felting [FULL]
Sat, 9 Nov 2024, 3–6pm HKT
CCG Library, Asia Art Archive
Artist Oksana Kapishnikova conducts a two-part workshop on Ala kiyiz, traditional Kyrgyz felt carpets created using a process of pressing wool together with unique regional patterns. She first introduces Ala kiyiz and Kyrgyz ornament. Through archival images and insights into Kyrgyz felting techniques, participants delve into the intricacies, peculiarities, symbolism, and meanings behind Kyrgyz ornamentation. The second part is a hands-on opportunity to create an ornament using the Kiyiz felting technique.
Sound and Video Meditative Experience | Yoky (Dream)
Sun, 10 Nov 2024, 11:30am–1pm HKT
Eaton Hotel, Kino Cinema
Yoky (Dream) showcases Central Asian lullabies with a focus on vibration, transmutation, and sound meditation. The experience is based on a DJ-Storytelling session that explores mixed cultural identity as one aspect of Kyrgyzstan and Central Asian culture.
DJ-Storytelling is a research art form developed by Diana Ukhina that integrates Central Asian music from past and recent history, folklore, popular modern music, and others, narrating stories through music by invoking cultural memory.
This event is organised in collaboration with Eaton HK, part of Eaton Workshop, a global hotel brand merging hospitality with progressive social change.
Free and open to the public with registration.
School teachers and pre-service teachers from all disciplines are welcome. A certificate will be given to participants upon request as proof of Continuing Professional Development of Teachers (CPD).
Bishkek School of Contemporary Art (BiSCA), founded in 2020, is a self-organised, socially engaged eight-member collective, working on the principles of circulation, accumulation, formation, and dissemination of knowledge. BiSCA promotes practices, discussions, and experiences of art in its various forms.
Bermet Borubaeva is an artist, curator, and Co-founder of the Bishkek School of Contemporary Art (BiSCA). She co-organised the eco-art festival TRASH and the School of Artistic Research Methodology. Her work concerns labour and the urban environment. She was the recipient of the CEC ArtsLink International Fellowship and Prince Claus Fund & Goethe-Institut’s Mentorship Awards for Cultural & Artistic Responses to Environmental Change (2022). She is a graduate of the ArtEast School for Contemporary Art.
Oksana Kapishnikova is an art historian, researcher, multidisciplinary artist, curator, and Co-founder of the Bishkek School of Contemporary Art (BiSCA). In her professional activity, she works with themes of new museology, working with community, gender, and ecology through the optics of art. In her artistic activity, she is involved in craftivism (textiles), eco-art, photography, and installations. She was the recipient of the CEC ArtsLink International Fellowship, and is a graduate of the ArtEast School for Contemporary Art.
Kanaiym Kydyralieva is an educator, researcher, artist, and Co-founder of the Bishkek School of Contemporary Art (BiSCA). In her texts, installations, and video art she often plays with reality and its possible scenarios. In addition to her artistic practice, Kydyralieva teaches data analysis, probability theory, and economics at a university. As part of BiSCA, she participated in documenta fifteen as a CrossCulture Programme Fellow (2022).
Diana Ukhina is a curator, researcher, artist, DJ, and Co-founder of the Bishkek School of Contemporary Art (BiSCA), SYNERGY Art Studio, and the School of Artistic Research Methodology. She participated in documenta fifteen with Gudskul as part of BiSCA and Central Asian research platform DAVRA (2022). Her work engages topics of art as process and experience, cultural memory, gender, Kyrgyzstan art history, new museology, and inner ecology. Her practice spans research exhibitions, text, photography, video, design, and DJ-storytelling.
Anthony Leung Po Shan is a writer and critic on topics such as art ecology, city space, cultural politics, and art labour. She was Co-curator of Lamma Mia, and published Mo Tat Then and Now—Historical and Social Research on Mo Tat Wan, Lamma Island (2021). Leung is a founding member of Island Studies Network (HK). Leung holds an MPhil and PhD from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and an MA in History of Art from Leeds University. She was awarded Artist of the Year by HKADC in 2018.
Yim Sui Fong is an artist and educator whose research focuses on socially engaged art, sound art, essay film, and experimental pedagogy. Her ongoing research explores sound as a medium to envision new forms of cohabitation. She is Co-founder of the charity organisation Rooftop Institute and a member of the art collective HASS Lab. Yim actively engages in initiating public engagement programmes that focus on research, practice, and the promotion of artist-led education.
Susanna Chung is Head of Learning & Participation and Head of Special Initiatives at Asia Art Archive.
Kanaiym Kydyralieva’s presentation is supported by the CrossCulture Programme Alumni Mobility by the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, Germany.
The AAA Learning & Participation Programme is supported by the S. H. Ho Foundation Limited.
