New Currents: Medina Bazarğali
By Tiffany Luk
MEDINA BAZARGALI and KOKONJA, will there be freedom then? (erkindik bola ma eken sol kezde?), 2023, multimedia installation with hand tufted felt and computer algorithm, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist.
In an independent, post-Soviet Kazakhstan, the discourse around decolonization has resonated in many artistic practices. Almaty-based multidisciplinary artist Medina Bazarğali, alongside her collaborator Kokonja, are among the artists who take this subject as the basis for their explorations. Presented at Hong Kong’s Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textiles (CHAT), their installation will there be freedom then? (erkindik bola ma eken sol kezde?) (2023) comprises a tent made of handmade felt tufted by the artists. Inside a continuously altered soundscape, music programmed using an algorithm plays alongside a live video of guests rendered as shadows with metrics such as gender, race, and anxiety level displayed on screen, reflecting the constructs inherited from colonial powers.
