Monuments and Other Things That Change: Several Attempts at Naming a Photograph: Film in the Works

May 8, 2013

May 8, 2013, 15:30, Room 315

Maria Vlasova, Fulbright Fellow, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, USA

Abstract: Unlike other countries in Central Asia and in the former Soviet Eastern bloc that have either erased the remnants of Soviet colonization or left it behind to create a completely new space, free of any connection with soviet history, the urban landscapes in Bishkek and Osh in Kyrgyzstan display layers of history. Soviet and post-independence monuments often share the same street separated only by several block. Post-riot ruins and graffiti demarcating ethnic neighborhoods share a wall with graffiti of another kind—tags and declarations of love in English, Russian and Kyrgyz are layered over faded, “authoritative” wall text of the city. These markers create a complex image of a country in transition. I will speak of these and other monuments and their movement in the city, through history and in-between epochs. My talk will be anchored in one untitled image by an anonymous photographer, which caught my eye at the archives.

Bio: Mariya Vlasova is a Russian born artist who lives and works in New York City. She studied experimental video and photography at The Cooper Union, earning her BFA in Fall 2012, and was awarded the Robert Breer Film and Video Award. She is the recipient of a Fulbright grant (2012-2013) and ACANSRS Film Grant (2013) to shoot a film in the Kyrgyz Republic. Her photographs have recently been exhibited in “In Time” at La MaMa La Galleria and "Framing Spaces/Narrating Places" at Leeds College of Art in the UK.

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