A Gift to Birobidzhan, 2009
This photograph is the part of the larger series “A New Silk Road: Algorithm of Survival and Hope” (2007). The artists use the medium of documentary photography to explore complex transformations in mentalities customs, behaviors, and attitudes of the people of Kyrgyzstan at a particular moment of Post–Soviet globalization, creating metaphors, signs, and symbols that characterize this transitive period of history.
Gulnara Kasmalieva and Muratbek Djumaliev live and work in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. In addition to their presentation/screening at MoMA (2009), and their solo exhibitions at the Art Institute in Chicago (2007) and Winkleman Gallery in New York (2006 and 2008), they have exhibited at the Venice Biennale, the Singapore Biennale, the Montreal Biennale, the Thessaloniki Biennale, the Shanghai Zendai Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei, the Mart Museum of Modern Art and many other international museums and biennials. Their work has been reviewed in Artforum, Flash Art, Frieze, Art in America, and other arts publications. They also organize and curate the highly acclaimed international biennial, “Bishkek Contemporary Art Exhibition.”