Re-Imagining The New Man

Project participants: Marifat Davlatova, Aytegin Muratbek, Syrlybek Bekbotayev, Alexandr Nicolaev, Murodzhon Sharipov, Rumyantseva Alla, Sulaymon Sharifi

Invited researchers: Zebiniso Iskandarova, Kuntuvdy Natalia, Faizulloev Muhidinjon

Project team: Surayo Tuichieva, John Davis, Mark Boswell, Jamshed Kholikov and Stefan Rusu

The project was designed to investigate post-socialist contexts, specifically the condition within Tajik society, which was formed during the soviet period and shifted after the collapse of Soviet Union to open market realities and capitalist principles. Within this circumstance, the project aimed at understanding, analyzing and questioning civic engagement, participatory practices in community development and transfer of knowledge by means of social and visual media in contemporary Tajikistan.

Practical section - film workshop “Reimagining the new man” took place between 17 - 29 March, 2014 at Dushanbe art Ground and was an in-depth exploration of the use of archival material, the aesthetics of appropriation, re-enactment, sampling and detournement, and the transfer of cinematic language to digital forms. It consisted in a series of lectures, seminars, film screenings, and assisted hands-on labs (selection of archival sources, analogue-digital transfers, writing of film scenarios and editing of final films). Each participant produced a film based on the re-use of archival sources (propaganda films archive from the socialist era, fragments of new films, home movies or private archives, television and internet). The Film Workshop provided an opportunity for cross-cultural exchange between artists and students from Tajikistan, regional artists from Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan), and the international faculty: John Davis (San Francisco, USA) and Mark Boswell (New York, USA) who were invited to lead the workshop.

Project partners: Dom KINO/Dushanbe, The University of Art and Design/Dushanbe, The Union of Artists of Tajikistan, Tojikkinoprokat/Dushanbe, Angor studio/Dushanbe, ArtAREA /Dushanbe.

This project was supported by U.S. Embassy in Tajikistan and U.S. Democracy Commission Small Grants Program; co-financed by Open Society Institute – Assistance Foundation in Tajikistan and Swiss Cooperation Office, Tajikistan.

Technical support: Angor studio/Dushanbe, ArtArea studio/Dushanbe.

Project organiser: Dushanbe Art Ground/ PF Sanati Muosir.