An exhibition in a digital space, as a collection of works freed from decay processes can be represented as a time capsule. We are sending this message to the future from present, while in quarantine, wondering what the world will be like after COVID-19. Thinking about the future and surfing the mainstream culture, each time we return to dystopia as a crisis of western narrative of the future [1].

The American critic Mark Dery, the author of the term “Afrofuturism” in his article “Black to the Future” [2] pointed out that most of the 20th century’s science fiction was written by American or European writers who completely excluded representatives of any other non-European cultures from their projection of the future.

The central theme of this digital capsule is Future from the perspective of artists working in the context of Central Asia and surrounding regions, in which the discourse of the future is more associated with disappointment in the utopian promises of Soviet propaganda. However, today’s virtual space seems to give us another chance to reinvent the multitude of ideal worlds and thereby reanimate utopian narratives as well as their political potential.

Emancipation of the imagination as a political tool is one of the main agendas of today’s art. Afrofuturism, sinofuturism, queer futurism and other alternative scenarios that challenge the status quo and the hegemony of Eurocentrism created new spaces of meanings, making a shift in our perception and inviting us to participate in the creation of new narratives of a decolonized future. 

ARTISTS

KATYA KAN
NAZIRA KARIMI
ASKHAT AKHMEDIAROV
IKURU KUWAJIMA
KRЁLEX ZENTR (RUTHIE JENRBEKOVA AND MARIA VILKOVISKY)
MARAT DILMAN
SERGEY MASLOV (from archive of the website Astral Nomads curated by Yulia Sorokina)

CURATED BY ANVAR MUSREPOV

Askhat Akhmediarov
The booster block
2018

MARAT DILMAN
UNTITLED
2018