Image: Machine (reiteration of the original work) exhibited at Focus Kazakhstan: Postnomadic Mind, Wapping Project, London, UK (2018)
The work commemorates victims of the Great Terror in Kazakhstan in 1937-38. It features an old typewriter and about one thousand arrest warrants with erased data. As a reference to the bureaucratic nature of terror, the work explores the narrative that such was the system, posing questions of individual participation in acts of violence.
The arrest warrants are stylised copies. Both the victims' and the perpetrators’ surnames have been erased, with only some signatures or stamps left intact. In this way, each warrant becomes a trace; it carries an indexical connection to the real person who signed it without pointing to that person.
Most importantly, this is a commemorative work. It explores the concept of mourning. The piece draws upon the Kazakh word for mourning, "joqtau", in the root of which is "joq" that signifies absence or negation. Mourning is a way of recognising absence, and with this piece, I seek to give a tangible, material presence to the collective loss.
The work was first made for the exhibition 1937 | Joqtau: Territory of Memory at the Kazakh State Museum of Fine Arts in Almaty in 2013. The exhibition was also shown in the Nevzorovs' Museum of Arts in Semey, Kazakhstan (2014) and the National Museum of Arts in Astana (2014).
The installation was also included in the shows, Reconciliation: Memory of the Steppes at Alghabas Centre for Contemporary Art within Artbat Fest, Almaty, Kazakhstan (2017), and Postnomadic Mind, within Focus Kazakhstan Project in London (2018)
Machine, installation detail, 2013
Kazakh State Museum of Fine Arts
Installation detail, Kazakh State Museum of Fine Arts, 2013
Installation detail, Machine (reiteration), Wapping Project, London, 2018
