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The Social Role of Art and Culture in Central Asia
Aliya de Tiesenhausen, Aliya de Tiesenhausen
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The Social Role of Art and Culture in Central Asia
Aliya de Tiesenhausen, Aliya de Tiesenhausen
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About This Book
This collection of multi-disciplinary essays offers a fresh, perspective on Central Asian art and culture as it gains increased attention on both the local and international stage. Influenced by the golden ages of its history – from the ancient Scythians, through the glory of the Persians and Turks, and shaped by the Russian and later Soviet imperial powers – the region is revealed as exotic, dramatic, and universally topical. Contributions come from scholars and participants in the Central Asian cultural scene who specialise in different, often isolated, spheres. Their unifying theme is identity and its formation, including national, ethnic, cultural, religious and gender identities.
Art and culture are shown to have active social roles – representing, analysing, questioning and supporting social upheavals and change. Culture is seen as an intrinsic part of society; while being affected by the specific historical context, it does at times affect it in return. From major socio-economic and political shifts, to smaller yet not less potent personal and individual identities, this collection demonstrates we are once again experiencing a time in which culture plays a crucial role in opening minds and facilitating change.
The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Central Asian Survey.
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Introduction: Art and culture – actors or representatives?
Aliya de Tiesenhausen
ABSTRACT
Central Asian art and culture have been gaining increased attention both within the region and on the international scene. This special issue brings together scholars and participants in the Central Asian cultural scene who specialize in different, often isolated, spheres. This multidisciplinary approach will enhance understanding of the current trends of display, presentation, accessibility and analysis that relate to individual countries, as well as to the entire region. Some articles are by established scholars; most have resulted from extensive field research. The papers question existing notions of history and memory production by applying a decolonial discourse. Ultimately, the main unifying theme is that of identity and its formation, including national, ethnic, cultural, religious and gender. The main purpose of this special issue is to try to understand the role the cultural scene plays in society, the issues raised by cultural production and the shape it could take. The collection of papers here seeks to explore whether culture offers a representation of society and its potential for change, or the vehicle through which such change can be achieved.
This special issue of Central Asian Survey is a collection of multidisciplinary papers providing a fresh, scholarly perspective on art and culture in Central Asia. The papers resulted from the Seventh Annual Doctoral Research Workshop on Central Asia, which took place at Senate House, University of London, on 26 January 2019. It was organized by Gül Berna Özcan, Aliya de Tiesenhausen, Gulzat Botoeva and Rosa Vercoe. The majority of the contributing articles originate from current or recently completed research studies.
Central Asian art and culture have been gaining increased attention both within the region and on the international scene. Influenced by the golden ages of its history – from the ancient Scythians, through the glory of the Persians and Turks, shaped by the Russian and later Soviet imperial powers – through historical and contemporary art, cinema, performance, architecture and literature, the region is seen as exotic, dramatic and universally topical. Art and culture are often viewed as part of the soft-power strategy employed by the states. At the same time, artists and authors increasingly find themselves at the forefront of social commentary.
This special issue brings together scholars and participants in the Central Asian cultural scene who specialize in different, often isolated, spheres. This multidisciplinary approach will enhance the understanding of the current trends of display, presentation, accessibility and analysis that relate to individual countries as well as the entire region. Contributions question the purely creative nature of art and present a critical approach to the role and use of culture by various actors – including states, commercial, charitable and non-governmental organizations, and individuals. This elucidates the complexity and interdependency of various stakeholders engaged in nation-building and the formation of national identities in the region.
Some of the papers are by established scholars; most have resulted from extensive field research. The articles question existing notions of history and memory production by applying a decolonial discourse. Ultimately, the main unifying interest is that of identity and its formation, including national, ethnic, cultural, religious and gender. Art and culture are shown to have active social roles – representing, analysing, questioning, and supporting social upheavals and change. All contributors use their disciplinary lenses imaginatively to tackle their selected issues and provide new ways to understand the social role of Central Asian art and culture.
Art history of any region or period offers a glimpse of society at the time. Some art supports known historical documents, other art contradicts and questions them. Whether it is one or the other is not in itself static – periodically reinterpretations of both history and art allow future generations to recognize new meanings, or in fact create them. However, it is the analysis of contemporary or recent art that presents the most pressing ethical as well as aesthetic questions which define or critique the current condition – both in the region and globally.
In contemporary Central Asia – the art scene is, according to Diana T. Kudaibergenova, an alternative forum for discussion (Kudaibergenova 2018b). In her view, it deals with four major themes: time, identity, state and self. Somewhat predictably, considering the fast-changing economic and political situation of the region, a lot of the discussion and analysis of this art resides in the oral and increasingly online spheres.
This journal itself is a testament to the strong interest in the region – in its society, politics and economy; however, less so in its cultural production. As the year 2020 has demonstrated, culture in most societies is often seen as a secondary activity, not vital to the functioning of society in times of crisis. However, this is a limited and top-down view – as opera sung on balconies, online theatre and artwork recreations on social media during the first quarantine attest. Culture may not be physically vital, but mentally it comes second only to live human contact.
This issue makes a contribution to a field (or several diverse fields) of study of Central Asian art and culture, with a particular interest in the recent research into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, dealing with issues that either directly affect contemporary Central Asian societies or are actively engaged in them. When one approaches the arts of this region and their study, it is necessary to note that both are quite different from Western notions of them. In the West, the art sphere relies on four pre-existing and well-established institutions: art education, art display, the art market and art criticism. All exist to some degree in Central Asia, but never to a defining extent, especially as far as contemporary art is concerned. On the one hand, state support for contemporary artists is uneven and limited, with some exceptions such as the extensive Focus Kazakhstan project in 2018, which while succeeding in producing four solid art exhibitions abroad nevertheless ended in several legal battles and a closure of the only Contemporary Art Centre at the National Museum. On the other hand, private interest is only starting to develop and is fragile – however, this is the only sphere where some consistency exists.
Criticism and analysis of art and culture in Central Asia happens on several interconnected levels. First, there is quite closely involved research, which includes the practitioners themselves – such as Tara Catherine Pandeya, Asel Kadyrkhanova, Saule Suleimenova and Kuanysh Bazargaliev (Pandeya 2020; Kadyrkhanova 2018; Suleimenova 2020a, 2020b; Bazargaliev, 2013). Although deemed problematic by some academic peers, this type of study is quite often an extension of historical or ethnographic research, which is recorded not only in text but also in physical (dance) or visual (art) interpretation. Therefore, one may suggest it is not purely research into the history of art, but certainly enriches such history.
Second, there are curator-critics who have strong and long-standing relationships with the practitioners – often having been instrumental in the development of their artistic careers. In Kazakhstan's contemporary art scene, these would include Valeria Ibraeva and Yulia Sorokina, Vladislav Sludsky and Aigerim Kapar (Ibraeva 2014; Sorokina 2006, 2015, 2016; Sludskiy 2020, 2021; Time and Astana, 2017; Yrysty 2019). This type of writing is for the most part highly informative, detailed and shows the expected intimate knowledge of both the artwork and the artist. It does place the art produced into the wider societal and art-historical context. To some extent, this writing functions as a continuation of the artwork, becomes part of its meaning. Both the practitioners and the curators produce content for exhibition catalogues, social media, and various local and international publications. Ibraeva's book is a notable exception – but it is in itself a compilation of her extensive writings on the Kazakh contemporary art scene. Both these groups of writers are taking an active part in the production and presentation of the new artistic material.
There are also local/internal researchers such as Alex Ulko, Moldiyar Yergebekov, Kulshat Medeuova, Alexandra Tsay, Alima Bissenova and Gulnara Abikeyeva who work with art, cinema, public monuments as expressions of memory or nation-building, and actively produce interdisciplinary academic analysis of the current situation from within (Ulko 2020; Yergebekov 2018; Medeuova 2020; Tsay 2017, 2018; Bissenova 2013; Abikeyeva 2003, 2006). In addition, there are hybrid publications, mostly exhibition catalogues, which are produced outside of Central Asia, but in close cooperation between local and foreign professionals (Abykayeva-Tiesenhausen, 2016; Art from Central Asia: A Contemporary Archive, 2005; East of Nowhere: Contemporary Art from post-Soviet Asia, 2009; Erbossyn Meldibekov: The (Dis)Order of Things, 2009; Muzykstan: Media Generation of Contemporary Artists from Central Asia, 2007; Samman and Abykayeva-Tiesenhausen, 2007). There are also several notable researchers working abroad, trying to categorize and reorganize the information on Central Asian culture, or the wider former Soviet region, for the English-speaking audience. These include Madina Tlostanova, Diana T. Kudaibergenova, Rico Isaacs and Razia Sultanova.
In her writing, Madina Tlostanova addresses the role art plays in post-Soviet societies (Tlostanova 2017, 2018). The interplay of various conditions related to colonial past is revealed in her examination of art produced in as varied places as Estonia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Russia. These countries share a colonial past – some as colonizers, others as colonized. For the last 30 years they have inhabited a post-colonial narrative – both officially as independent states and within academic literature – and are subject to neo-colonial pressures from both old Eastern and new Western players. However, it is the decolonial nature of art-making and writing from the few artists whom Tlostanova analyses that gives a glimpse of activism and engagement and allows for new foundations and the possibility of a different, conceivably decolonial future.
Rico Isaacs his study of Kazakh cinema reveals the clear and consistent narratives that allow the reader to trace nation-building strategies and aspirations both dictated from above and offered from within the Kazakh society (Isaacs 2018). Isaacs draws a historical account of the development of Kazakh cinema from Soviet inception to contemporary times. By analysing it in a methodical and structured manner, the author provides an exploration of national identity and nationalism – imagined, portrayed or rehearsed on screen.
Diana T. Kudaibergenova explores national narratives from various perspectives. In her first book she traces the construction of history and nation through literature (Kudaibergenova 2017). Analysing major works of the Soviet period, their authors and context, Kudaibergenova draws a portrait of a cultural discourse that has shaped the national and nationalist ideologies that permeate both Soviet and post-Soviet Kazakh society. In her other writing the author addresses identity and social activism as parts of contemporary art structures in Central Asia (Kudaibergenova 2018a, 2018b).
Razia Sultanova's works give ethnomusicologist accounts of the results of an intersection of religion, gender and culture in Central Asia by looking at women's use of music within predominantly Muslim cultures that have been at different times historically and culturally affected by Shamanism, Sufism and Soviet policy (Sultanova 2014). By doing so, the author examines the historical and existing social norms as well as an interconnection between cultural production – such as music, and levels of personal and social identity and mentality.
The four authors above represent the current dominant English-language discourse surrounding Central Asian culture. This discourse centres on the interplay between social contexts of art/culture creation and consumption and the way context and product are affecting one another. The special issue aims to accomplish two things. On the one side, to examine new ways of seeing Central Asian culture by presenting recent research studies on the subject. On the other, to bring together scholars from fields of study that remain quite distant, yet on closer examination seem to share very similar issues and methods. The authors...