DARNING OF THE AREA project
"Topografika" exhibition (American University of Central Asia)
2015
Ulan Japarov, curator of the exhibition
Aida Sulova, co-curator
Karen Davidov, art director
Photos, darning, installation
When Ulan Dzhaparov offered me to participate in the TOPOGRAFICA project at AUCA (American University of Central Asia), the image of the place where Ulan took us in the summer immediately appeared in my mind - the village of Kadzhi Sai in Issyk-Kul (Kyrgyzstan), where there are the ruins of a once large uranium mining enterprise. The former center of gravity of the life of people living in this place is turning into a kind of landscape slowly striving to merge with the earth. It used to be filled with sounds, thoughts, destinies - now emptiness and devastation. People are leaving, and it is not clear whether this is the past or our future. Everything that is done by human hands goes into the sand. But there is a small opportunity to stop this process for a second, to patch holes in a new way, to darn the area.
During the discussion, there was a question of the place where the works would be exhibited. I suggested “to darn the space” above the flight of stairs - the flag of Kyrgyzstan emerging from the threads. Later I learned from a conversation with Aida (co-curator of the exhibition) that in fact there is no one-piece country flag, and all of the country's flags are created from pieces. Then we decided to place the “darn of the area” at the staircase where it is still.