Re-locations

Single-channel video, silent, 24min., 2020 Sound installation, 15min., 2020

Re-locations is a project based around a small publication of personal photographs and memories of the Soviet soldier Vladislav Tamarov who fought in the Soviet-Afghan war in the mid-1980s. Later, he moved to the US and published a book with the help of the journalist Naomi Marcus. It is distinguished by its very subtle transitions from battles to the author's pre-war life and vice versa. This project traces the constant remediations of memory and trauma. 

Testimony of Light

A digital reenactment of the Afghan landscape described in the diary entries and documented in personal photographs of the soldier. Once a battleground, the site no longer physically resembles those descriptions closely. A meeting point of multiple times and places, the subject of the Testimony floats around multiple themes, among most visible on its surface are those of the agency of the landscape and the nature of the gaze.

Talking Stone

Further exploring the theme of documentation and witnessing, the work Talking Stone consists of a large rock with a speaker attached to it. The sound exuded is a monologue that retells the descriptions of the landscapes of Afghanistan as captured in sketches made by  Soviet military painters during the invasion. Combining an element of the landscape with various descriptions of it, the work explores the themes of language and landscape, interpretation, witnessing and storytelling.