Korpe 1 out of 2, 2023
floor pillow, 47 cups, newspaper grocery ads
Korpe 2 out of 2, 2022
floor pillow, 53 cups, newspaper grocery ads, cranberry concentrate,
Video, 1:56 minutes (loop), 2021, Jewish Museum.
EVERYTHING IS FINE is an infinite loop video experiment that toys with the commonly used words for calming oneself. The video attempts to put the validity and honesty of those words into question by absurding them through repetition, layering and transparencies inside the video.
Video installation with decaying apples, 16 x 40 x 75 inches, 2019.
This performance is titled “Dog’s growl” or “It Iryldady” and it reenacts and rethinks an old Kazakh wedding traditions. “Dog’s Growl” happens when the groom visits the bride’s village for the first time. As he approaches the brides house an older woman of the village, who is usually related to the bride would get on her all fours and start pulling on the groom’s clothes with her teeth imitating a dog that doesn’t want to let someone into the house. The tradition is silly and light, but at what point did someone actually felt the need to try to stop the groom from entering the bride’s house by acting like a dog and how many times did it had to happen for it to become a tradition? This performance is 6 minutes long. I reperform the tradition in a fake white leather dog mask, by acting like a dog and pulling on a traditional groom's coat. Behind me images of traditional Kazakh weddings are being projected.
November 2018, 00:21 minute loop, dimensions vary.
My mom used to tell me this story about a beautiful princess who wouldn’t behave and would curse all the time and every time she cursed frogs came out of her mouth. This is a short video that is supposed to be on a loop called “Cursing”. That story that my mom told is a cautionary tale that falls under the same category as telling your kid that if you masturbate you will get hairy palms. This is my interpretation of the story.
This performance references and refuses to perform 2 coming of age Kazakh traditions: piercing of girl’s ears and cutting of the rope around infant’s legs. In Kazakh culture when a child is about to start walking there's a tradition of tying child’s feet with a small rope and cutting it, “freeing” the child from the rope and giving them the ability to walk, the ability to walk freely through this earth. And piercing of a girl’s ears traditionally is the first step in a girls life to becoming a woman, a mother and a wife. I stayed as still as possible stuck in the balancing structure, refusing to perform the traditions, refusing to "grow up" according to rules and standards. By not performing the coming of age traditions, refusing to fall into the gender normative behavior.
March 2019, wood, latex, fake leather, metal, video, synthetic carpet, 2 x 25 lb and 4 x 10 lb Olympic grade weight plates, 4 x 10 lb ankle weights, shoes, earrings, 2 tea cups, synthetic hair, dental dams , 3 minute video, 48 x 130 x 60 inches.
2019. Writing. Preferably read out loud.
November 2018, 00:47 minute loop, dimensions vary. This piece was made out of frustration of craving Kazakh food.