Uzbekistan
One of the most important skills of a contemporary photographer is to be able to go beyond a mere frame, to think outside the limitations of a static shot. While at an early stage of a photographer’s professional development the fascination with a single beautiful picture is understandable, today it is largely left to amateurs to try to compete with postcards and stunning photos of nature from the National Geographic.
Around this time three years ago, I posted about the video game “Metro 2033″, based on the novel by Russian journalist Dmitry Glukhovsky. The sequel (“Last Light”) has just been released, thus prompting this post. The setting of the series is an underground society founded by survivors of a nuclear war that was waged in 2013 (yikes!). They scrape by in the Moscow subway system, which has transformed into an almost Biblical sheol. NewEurasia’s snobbish managing editor Sanjar says, “it’s no War and Peace”. Sure, sure. But speaking as a person who’s probably imbibed way too much post-apocalyptic fiction since childhood, Glukhovsky and his compatriots at 4A Games have made one of the more engrossing scenarios in the genre. The series mixes mysticism, science fiction, and politics in an unusual way. It’s also nice to see some Eurasian sensibilities injected into Western popular culture; we’ve been surely lacking it since the Seventies.
Postcolonial discourse analysis focuses not only on the material consequences of colonialism per se but on the language of description of the reality.
Burned roof of “Ilkhom” theater these days holds the Public Art exhibition «Refresh». The group of young artists worked on it under the guidance of renowned master Gabriel Specter, who included in the Top 50 of world Public Art artists ( by Complex Art+Design version).
On 25 April I gave a talk on contemporary Uzbek photography in front of the most challenging audience imaginable, a few dozens of modern Uzbek photographers who gathered in the House of Photography in Tashkent courtesy of the Neformat Photo Club. The formal pretext for the presentation was a talk about the 50th Conference of the Society for Photographic Education which took place in Chicago’s Palmer Hilton House on 7-10 April 2013.
While Uzbekistan secretly prohibit rock’n'roll, and the men with guitars are rolling back into the underground, Uzbek women takes rock music in their cute hands!
Tashkent “Ilkhom” theater has opened on 13 April the unique project – Laboratory of young directors of Central Asia. It is attended by directors from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Goal of the Laboratory – to render assistance in the implementation of creative projects by young directors, which only starting their way in the profession. This year’s program is based on the practical involvement in the Laboratory during the staging of play, but also there will be a series of workshops and master classes with leading CIS theater experts. Read the full story »
In every corner of Uzbekistan people will tell you that it is probably the most important social unit in the society, but the problem is that this institution has dramatically changed over the last 100 years and is changing. Therefore it is important to differentiate between the myth and the reality to understand how it functions.
The Orthodox Holy Dormition Cathedral in Tashkent has organized the First International Orthodox Exhibition “From the good life to the welfare and prosperity.” In the course of this exhibition visitors from various monasteries, churches and other Christian organizations from CIS were selling a variety of goods in the Cathedral.
Fourteen years ago Grigory Ilyich Ulko, an Honorary Artist of Uzbekistan and my father, quietly passed away in his Samarkand home. As an artist he deserves, perhaps, more than just a short mention in a blog, but today I would like to say a few words about him also as a representative of a certain generation of artistic intelligentsia. One may say, a generation lost in the period of transition and yet remarkably resilient and healthy.
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