BY KZ__________________________________________________
Shalazine is a self-published journal on contemporary art, activism, and subcultures from post-Soviet space and beyond. It attempts to outline a loose network of under-institutionalized artistic activities from various localities, framing them under the concept of Translocality. Shalazine suggests to rethink the paradigm of territory and free it from the obsolete implications of being a patriarchal military playground and the birthplace of “authentic” culture and identity. The journal is published by krёlex zentre, a conceptual artistic parainstitution based in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Following the krёlex theoretical approach and political stance, Shalazine is concerned with queer-feminist and decolonial revision of androcentric and Eurocentric presumptions in today’s cultural work, questioning the boundaries between the human and inhuman, culture and nature, the fictitious and real.
Shalazine’s first issue focuses on the topic of self-organization in contemporary art and features five artist-run collaborative and quasi-institutional projects: Intimnoe Mesto (Saint Petersburg, Russia), Open Place (Kyiv, Ukraine), Q rators (Kyiv and Paris), Katipaapism (Almaty, Kazakhstan), SHTAB (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan). Concluding this issue, a keynote article by Ruthie Jenrbekova puts the journal in the context of anthropology of modernity and proposes the term xenography for an art-based methodology that reverses and subverts the traditional anthropological attitude toward distant cultures and artistic practices of the global periphery.
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“Under One Cover” queer poetry compilation
“Под Одной Обложкой” cборник квир-поэзии
Сборник дает представление о современных литературных практиках двадцати с лишним авторов из разных частей света, в чьем творчестве базовые конвенции патриархальной культуры гендерного принуждения и физического насилия являются темой серьезной поэтической рефлексии. Это сравнительно новая перспектива переосмысления культурных традиций является важным знаком перемен в русскоязычном (и не только) литературном поле и может представлять живой интерес для всех, кто интересуется современной поэзией.
Сборник адресован совершеннолетней читательской аудитории.
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YSSO ODNA poetry paper, issue #5
ЫШШО ОДНА поэтическая газета, выпуск №5
Every issue of this paper has it’s own editors and a theme. This issue, gathering thirty Russian-speaking poets is dedicated to gender politics.
PDF here.
ABOUT KZ_______________________________________________
Theatre Today in Central Asia: 10 Years Later.
Introduction to the 2015 Edition
An Introduction to Theatre Today in
Central Asia is a networking handbook
allowing theatre professionals from Europe
and elsewhere to get a very general idea
of the state of theatre and performing
arts in contemporary Central Asia.
This issue is featuring krёlex zentre (aka Creoleak Cultural
Centr ) in the Spotlight rubric:
“Creoleak Centr, an artistic collective comprised of Ruth Jenrbekova and Maria
Vilkovisky from Almaty, is best described with the prefix trans-. Creoleak Centr is a transgender, transnational and transdisciplinary transinstitution. In their most recent performance ‘Intermedia, or how to organise cultural production with one’s own resources’ the artists attempted to challenge the conventional frames through which the various social events such as a lecture, a panel discussion, a theatre performance, a poetry reading, a concert, a party, an informal gathering are conceived. The artists state that ‘the boundaries between the categories and genres, similarly to the boundaries between genders, can become penetrable and subvert the traditional classifications and social hierarchies”.
(text by Georgy Mamedov)
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Perseid PearlShower Queer Wedding Ceremony
A report by Mandy Romero with photos by Nico Harter published at TGlife
“The pretext for the party is a celestial one, the Perseid meteor shower due to be seen in the skies tonight, but it is an occasion to bring together the LGBT community of Almaty and to celebrate in a safe space. […] The ceremony itself is both parody and suitably and seriously pagan. Ruthie and Masha enter through the curtains to a classical fanfare, and others, following, take their moment to dramatize their commitment to each other herself whilst a young woman commits to marrying herself. Katipa then wields a shamanistic drum and after a ceremonial slicing of an onion its rings are exchanged as marital tokens. The proceedings are in the Kazakh language, and after a ritual “scarification” of the happy couple Ruthie makes a concluding speech. All of this is carried out in the spirit of the Perseids, “a Cosmic Queer Insemination is a rite of passage that leads its participants toward non-binary pluriverse of manifold genders, sexualities and marriages that populate our lovely home”, and according to the “holy book”, a script created by Creolex for the occasion. The crowd love every moment and are ready now to party the night away”.
(text by Mandy Romero)
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Interview in Kazakhstan’s major newspaper Vremya (Time)
Women’s Business Exhibition Opening
Women’s Business Exhibition Opening ( Photo & Video Report)
Press on Women’s Business Exhibition 1, 2, 3
Press on Anything Goes Exhibition
Press on Second Sex Exhibition 1, 2, 3,
kreolex zentre first public presentation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uk83WOFXZI