Barsakelmes was a former island in the Aral Sea, now a tract in the Aral region of the Kyzylorda region of Kazakhstan. The programme takes Barsakelmes as its focus geographically and conceptually, reimagining the myth of Nurtole, an ancient kyui, a traditional Central Asian form of musical song. Its events unfold with the democratic logic of myth-making, where the artist is no longer the author but an anonymous figure. With the sound of his kobyz, Nurtole banished a kingdom of marauding snake creatures to the Aral Sea — which today, centuries later, has disappeared due to Soviet extraction of natural resources, one of the world’s most significant man-made ecological disasters. Now that the water has gone, the snake creatures’ spirits have returned. From the Kazakh language, barsakelmes is literally translated as you will go and not return. This departure or migration could also be seen as a metaphor for the local artistic and intellectual state, the way the region’s artistic community feels, but it is also an international trait. 

The legend of Nurtole preserves echoes of an ancient initiation ritual, a rite of the commemoration of ancestors, or aruakhs (spirits). Taking its cue from this, the programme aims at a ritual purification of Tselinny’s new space with the help of the blessings of  ancestors / aruakhs through various media – art, sound, music, dance – and visual culture more broadly. This multidisciplinary approach aims to situate Tselinny as a space of desire, a shelter for art and thought; no longer a cinema but a space for performances, exhibitions and reflection.

This resynthesis and reimagining of Barsakelmes is a collaboration between the Tselinny team, Gulnur Mukazhanova, Dariya Temirkhan and Samrattama with qazaq indie. 

Gulnur Mukazhanova (b. 1984, Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan) was born shortly before the end of the USSR. She studied at the Art Academy in Almaty and the Kunsthochschule in Berlin Weißensee. Now based in Berlin, she has worked mainly with textiles for several years, with felt as her most important material. Influenced by Kazakh textile traditions, her practice addresses identity and the transformation of her culture’s traditional values of her culture in the age of globalisation. In her art, she processes her Kazakh origins and the actual state of society there via an international perspective. 

During Barsakelmes Mukazhanova will present her special commission of portals. In Central Asian culture historically, it was believed that the spirits of ancestors occupied the threshold of people’s homes — specifically the traditional yurt’s frame. On the other hand, the entrance, a portal, is a grounding element of earthiness, the basis on which everything rests. In this case, the frame of the portal is something sacred, where we were born: our origin. 

Dariya Temirkhan (b. 2000),  one of a new generation of Kazakh artists, works across collage, film and installation. Her video work Who guards your dreams is a based on a series of watercolours of snakes and dragons which is then projected onto the sgraffito of Yevgenii Sidorkin in Orta 1. The work is also based on a legend about dragons, in this case those which have been water spirits, and it immerses viewers in a world of fragments where Temirkhan’s associative rendering makes new connections between ideas. 

qazaq indie is an independent music association from Kazakhstan dedicated to supporting independent domestic culture. qazaq indie began in 2016 with the creation of the VK public page of the same name, where many local DIY and indie musicians first published recordings. Since the end of 2017, the association has been organising showcases and festivals as well as promoting and managing artists. In 2020, it formed a music label of the same name. The word ‘indie’ in the name suggests less its genre than indicates the independence of the music it distributes. 

Barsakelmes is led by Samrattama with collective members Balkhash dreaming, Dudeontheguitar, Steppe sons, lovozero and jeltoksan. For Barsakelmes a special invitation is forwarded to Zere Asylbek, Kyrgyz singer, songwriter and sound artist, and Saadet Türköz, an internationally-renowned vocal artist in the field of free jazz and improvisation, and an experienced performer and vocal trainer. A qazaq indie collective will be conducting a performative element of the project every weekend at Tselinny.