ALMATY.- Kazakhstan’s first independent cultural institution opens in May 2025 in its new permanent home, the Soviet-era former Tselinny cinema, transformed by British architect Asif Khan
Opening programme, Barsakelmes
The inaugural programme begins with a series of events under the title Barsakelmes, whose approach – temporal, not merely spatial – is grounded in the nomadic, performative character of Kazakh culture.
The programme takes as its geographical and conceptual starting point Barsakelmes - a former island in the Aral Sea, now a tract in the Aral region of Kazakhstan. It reimagines the myth of Nurtole in the form of an ancient kyui, a traditional Central Asian form of musical song. The myth of Nurtole preserves echoes of an ancient initiation ritual, a rite of commemoration of ancestors, or aruakhs (spirits). The inaugural programme offers a ritual purification of Tselinny’s new space with the help of the blessings of ancestors, through various media – art, sound, music, dance – and visual culture more broadly.
During Barsakelmes, Berlin-based Kazakh visual artist Gulnur Mukazhanova (b. 1984, Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan) presents a new commission centred around the concept of portals. In Central Asian culture historically, it was believed that the spirits of ancestors occupied the threshold of people’s homes — specifically the traditional yurt’s frame – and chose whether to invite a guest to enter. For those who dwelt in the home, these ancestor-spirits kept them safe. As a grounding element, a portal acts as an entrance, one which speaks to our very origins, where we were born.
Visual artist Dariya Temirkhan (b. 2000, Oral, Kazakhstan) presents a new commission, the video work Who guards your dreams, based on a legend of dragons who have previously been water spirits, alongside a series of watercolours depicting snakes and dragons.
Other artists participating in the opening programme include Samrattama, a musical artist and poet from Kazakhstan and the experimental collective qazaq indie featuring artists Dudeontheguitar, Balkhash Dreaming, Steppe sons, lovozero and jeltoksan; as well as regional artists Zere Asylbek, a Kyrgyz singer, songwriter and sound artist, and Saadet Türköz, an internationally-renowned vocal artist in the field of free jazz and improvisation.
The opening programme also includes: an architectural exhibition of the transformation of Tselinny, From Sky to Earth: Tselinny by Asif Khan, curated by historian and curator of architecture, Markus Lähteenmäki; and Documentation: Imagination of Central Asia on the Map of Contemporary Art, an archival exhibition curated by Asel Rashidova exploring the Tselinny Documentation project, a digital data set that collects archives of Central Asia from 1985.
The second edition of the Korkut Sonic Arts Triennale takes place from 6 September to 1 November 2025. Initiated by Tselinny, the Triennale is dedicated to contemporary forms of sound art, performative listening practices, experimental and avant-garde music, oral genres, and much more. The second edition of the Triennale is curated by Stas Shärifulla, also known as HMOT, an artist-researcher based in Basel working with sound and decoloniality. Approximately 20 artists, predominantly from Central and North Asia, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, will take part. The Triennale theme and full list of participants will be announced in March 2025.
Activities, events and performances taking place in 2025 beyond the opening programme include an inclusive performance by Deistvie Bukvalno Laboratory, the first inclusive theatre laboratory in Central Asia; an exhibition by Kazakh contemporary artists Galym Madanov and Zauresh Terekbay; the Histories of Tselinny film programme, offering alternative trajectories of cinema and centring Kazakh cinema; the Qyz Qaras Film Festival, an independent initiative to support women’s voices in the Kazakh film industry; and a new site-specific commission I Assemble What is Left by Taus Makhacheva.
