RUBEZH: LIBERTY
Instant exhibition of émigré art
On March 25, 2023, the second Instant Exhibition of Immigrant Art RUBEZH*: HOME took place. The event featured 36 artists from 10 countries around the world, selected through an open-call competition. Among them were artists with immigration experience from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Thailand, Turkey, Serbia, South Korea, Montenegro, Russia, and Indonesia. In total, 327 guests attended the exhibition.
Jury
- Alsu GarapovaCurator
- Zhandos AlibaevPainting Expert
- Daria VlasovaCinema and Visual Art Expert
- Lev ShusharichevArt Expert
- Yulia PogodaevaPerformative Action Expert
- OPIUMMusic Selectivity Experts
- Georgy SeleznevElectronic Music Expert
- Valentin FedorovArt Director, Photography Expert
Curator's appeal
That’s it. We can no longer bear this. We are leaving our home in search of a new place that we can call our own. What will we choose?
Freedom or rootlessness?
Belonging or dependence?
Catharsis or hysteria?
Self-control or emotional inhibition?
Right to choose or permissiveness?
Safety or authoritarianism?
Autonomy or isolation?
Sociability or oppression?
Openness to new or recklessness?
Traditions or conservatism?
Conviction or obstinacy?
Tolerance or conformity?
Liberty.
Freedom or rootlessness?
Belonging or dependence?
Catharsis or hysteria?
Self-control or emotional inhibition?
Right to choose or permissiveness?
Safety or authoritarianism?
Autonomy or isolation?
Sociability or oppression?
Openness to new or recklessness?
Traditions or conservatism?
Conviction or obstinacy?
Tolerance or conformity?
Liberty.
The absolute that we strive for. Is it possible to achieve it?
Works
RUBEZH: HOME took place in two locations: the daytime program was held at the co-living space POSTROY SVINYU LYUBOV, and the nighttime program was held at the bar Everyday Saturday. The exhibition showcased 43 works, including installations, performances, photo and video works, paintings, and experimental electronic music sets. The daytime program also featured a lecture by a migration researcher psychologist, and the nighttime program ended with a rave featuring original DJ sets, light and video installations.
Music
Day program
17:00 — 19:00
When you leave your house, city, country that has already become your home, and go on new journeys, you discover emotions that manifest themselves only with such global changes. When the sounds of the city at night, people, landscapes outside the window, food and a lot of everything else make you touch something unknown to you. Under all this influence of the new and unusual, you want to create and express your feelings in music or another performance familiar to you. Letting go of the past allows you to experience the extraordinary. And it is cool, and you want to live.
18:30 — 19:30
Home has a different meaning for everyone. For someone, it’s the taste of food, for someone — special smells, for someone — a favorite wallpaper color. For our laboratory, home is primarily a sound. Random musical motifs that bring back memories of the old house with equal force and accustom to a new one.
19:00 — 20:30
A dj set in the genre of comfy synth. With the help of this music, I want to convey my sense of what home is, including inner home that is always with us, wherever we are. Home for me is when it’s warm, safe, calm and kind. When there is a place for sincere interest. When you can slow down and stay in the moment. Comfy synth envelops the homely atmosphere like a blanket. It immerses us in memories when we were happy. When mom was reading a bedtime story. When we were sitting around the campfire with dear friends. When we looked at the stars.
19:30 — 22:00
The project is a dj set consisting of works by musicians from Korolev, the author’s hometown. The bulk of the tracks are experimental electronics, also includes the works of the author himself, which will be performed publicly for the first time. The set seeks to convey love for the native city, to express respect to the musicians who create music in Korolev, and also to convey to the listener their names and works.
Video art
Private
Sergunmt
2022
Sergunmt
2022
Graffiti claims to be everything private that appears in public space. Many passers-by would see me drawing graffiti on the street and say, "Draw it at home." But how can you draw at home if you live there and need to take a break from graffiti, because home is a place of rest.
bliss II
DMITRII MAIKOVICH
2021
DMITRII MAIKOVICH
2021
When I moved to Armenia, I woke up several times at night from a thunderstorm, thinking that an Azerbaijani rocket had arrived. There are amazing emerald mountains in Vanadzor. Looking at them, I wondered how many people were lying there. I left Russia when the war started, and now the war has overtaken me in Armenia.
The Dark Years
AMALIIA PRTAVIAN
2022
AMALIIA PRTAVIAN
2022
The video is dedicated to the family memory of life in Armenia during the energy crisis in the 90s. This time is called the "The Dark Years" in Armenia. Home is safeness, security, a state of peace and confidence. Home is where it is quiet. In the Dark Years, the house became a cruel and dangerous place that had to be abandoned in search of more suitable conditions for survival.
Music
Night program
23:00 — 00:00
A set of broken rhythms with a taste of childhood: music that I listened to as a child, or inspired by it. For me, all this is strongly associated with home. Being small, I didn’t go to parties and raves, but sat at home listening to the radio and cassettes. Initially, I was going to play a set from those cassettes. But I realized that there was not enough material nigh at hand. Most of them stayed there: at home…
00:00 — 01:00
I wanted to make the main idea of the set a feeling of separation from my origins, in other words from my cultural home, the loss of a sense of conditional security. I took pre-war demo tracks and various sound attributes of anxiety as a basis, I tried to give the sound a sense of drive and longing. In general, I wanted a lyrical and dark sound.
02:00 — 04:00
Creative energy and the desire to express our emotions are not hindered by barriers and distances. Recently many of us have lost our usual home, and forced to wander the globe, we still find each other, unite and create, creating our own home beyond the usual geographical and domestic boundaries in a fleeting asynchronous moment.
The method of genealogies is a heuristic tool with which a musician, DJ and any other cultural figure can connect worlds and break familiar ties, and it is also a saving pill from hierarchies and canons. In his dj set, ROMA SZ will show in practice what it means to make music genealogically.
The RUBEZH Instant Exhibition Series of Immigrant Art is a pop-up exhibition where immigrant artists from around the world share their experiences through art, thereby helping others cope with the difficulties of immigration. The exhibitions are held in Bishkek, as well as in an online format on the rubeeeeeeezh. io website. Since its launch in December 2022, we have held two exhibitions in Bishkek and presented 75 projects from participants representing 11 countries.
* RUBEZH — transliteration of the Russian word РУБЕЖ in Latin. It means both a physical boundary and a mental milestone.
* RUBEZH — transliteration of the Russian word РУБЕЖ in Latin. It means both a physical boundary and a mental milestone.