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- Convenors:
-
Assiya Issemberdiyeva
(Queen Mary, U of London (UK))
Aigerim Kapar (Artcom Platform)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Theme:
- Cultural Studies, Art History & Fine Art
Abstract
This panel brings together curatorial and artistic research perspectives to examine how water is conceptualised, represented, and contested in modern and contemporary imaginary from Kazakhstan. Spanning film, painting, conceptual practices, and interdisciplinary inquiry, the presentations approach water not only as a visual motif but as a critical lens through which to explore the nexus of hydro cosmology, ecology, and history in the region.
The panel traces shifting artistic engagements with water—from local cultural knowledge to Soviet-era depictions of rivers, lakes, and industrial modernisation and recent practices that foreground environmental crisis and memory. Water emerges as a site where competing narratives intersect: as resource and commodity, as carrier of cultural and cosmological meaning, and as a medium through which artists address the legacies of colonial infrastructure, extraction, and ecological degradation.
Particular attention is given to key sites such as the Aral Sea, Caspian Sea, and Lake Balkhash, whose transformations illuminate broader hydrosocial dynamics. Central to the panel is the concept of hydro-cosmology, which frames water as a relational and epistemic system that connects human, ecological, and spiritual dimensions. Through this lens, water is understood not only as material or resource, but as a carrier of cultural knowledge shaped by nomadic epistemologies, oral traditions, and embodied practices. In dialogue with this, the notion of infrastructures of care highlights how artistic and research-based practices engage with water through forms of responsibility, repair, and collaboration across communities and scales.
Bringing together works from museum collections, long-term artistic initiatives, and interdisciplinary collaborations, the panel proposes water as a central framework for understanding how artists in Kazakhstan negotiate questions of identity, responsibility, and planetary interdependence in a time of ecological uncertainty.
Accepted papers
Abstract
Water occupies a complex symbolic and aesthetic role in Kazakh cinema, functioning as both a material presence and a metaphorical device through which filmmakers explore identity, memory, and environmental transformation. This abstract examines how water is represented across key works of Kazakh film, from the late Soviet period to contemporary productions, situating these depictions within broader cultural and ecological contexts of the Central Asian steppe.
In Kazakh cinema, water bodies often appear in tension with the dominant landscape of steppe, acquiring heightened symbolic weight. Rivers, lakes, and seas—are not merely geographic features but the unknown landscapes of inner worlds, as well as loss and transition. Filmmakers frequently employ water imagery to evoke nostalgia and collective trauma.
At the same time, water functions as a medium of introspection and spiritual reflection. In several films, scenes set near and under water mark moments of personal transformation or existential pause, aligning with broader poetic traditions in Central Asian art. Directors utilise reflective surfaces, fluid movement, and sound design to create contemplative atmospheres, positioning water as a liminal space between past and present, or between reality and memory.
Overall, the representation of water in Kazakh cinema reveals a layered visual language in which environmental, historical, and philosophical concerns converge. Through its shifting forms and meanings, water becomes a central motif for articulating the complexities of Kazakh cultural identity in a rapidly changing world.
Abstract
This paper examines Lake Balkhash within the Ili–Balkhash basin as a hydrosocial system shaped by intersecting histories of Soviet colonial industrialization, post-independence extractive processes and ongoing climate pressures. It approaches the lake as a relational environment where water, memory, and power are continuously reconfigured through infrastructural interventions, ecological change, and everyday practices. The concept of hydrocosmology is developed to foreground water as a carrier of cultural knowledge and relational practices, drawing on nomadic epistemologies, embodied observation, and oral traditions that remain embedded in the steppe and lake environments.
Drawing on the long-term initiative Care for Balkhash, the paper explores how care operates as an infrastructural practice that reconnects fragmented hydrocommunities and enables forms of translation between local knowledge and institutional governance. Through artistic research, public forums, and interdisciplinary collaboration, the initiative situates cultural practice within hydrosocial processes and environmental decision-making. By situating Balkhash within interconnected atmospheric, glacial, and riverine cycles, the paper articulates how planetary interdependence can be understood through a specific watershed and proposes hydrocosmology as a framework for engaging ecological crisis through relational responsibility.