by Catrin Davies, Artes Mundi Live Guide
Last Friday, year 7 pupils from Cefn
Hengoed school came to the Artes Mundi exhibition. During their workshop, we watched ‘A New Silk
Road, Algorithm of Survival and Hope’, by two artists from Kyrgyzstan, Gulnara
Kasmalieva and Muratbek Djumaliev.
During this video we watched old trucks from the Soviet era travelling
on the Silk Road from Kyrgyzstan to Western China to sell their scrap metal. Travelling in the opposite direction are the more
modern lorries from China, carrying readymade clothes to sell.
The pupils seemed, at first a little despondent,
presuming that this footage of the Silk Road was filmed several years ago. They were shocked when I told them that the
footage was actually filmed as recently as 2006. As we watched the rhythmic process of these
people working, some of the pupils stated that these sorts of jobs could be
made by machines in this country. The
pupils were surprised by this more primitive way of working. They were all in agreement that life on the
Silk Road is worlds apart to their lives here in Wales, which made them
question why?
Kyrgyzstan was originally a nomadic
country. As they became a part of the
Soviet Union, many of the people of Kyrgyzstan were forced to settle and
farm. Today, the country is
democratic. The work here at the Artes
Mundi shows how these people have adapted in order to survive and make a living. The country doesn’t have any natural
resources, and the price of importing is high.
They have reverted back to trading on the Silk Road, as they did
centuries ago. Although their lives, perhaps,
seem to us like a life of hardship, one could argue that trading the scrap
metal with China shows entrepreneurial qualities. It shows these people’s resilience, and their
ability to adapt with a world that is constantly changing. Although I personally believe that the work,
at times, offers a picture of hope, others disagree. One woman that was on a guided tour thought
that Gulnara and Muratbek’s video installation shows a dire situation- and thought
that the black smoke puffing out of the old Soviet lorries was a good representation
of this. Despite agreeing that the
videos were an interesting insight, she couldn’t see any hope in the art work
at all. We compared the video to a
programme we both recently caught that followed the lives of people that
scavenged and even lived on the dumps in Lagos, Nigeria. It seemed that
the dump is an organized place where the most entrepreneurial of individuals
can make a living. Although it seemed
like a hard life, the scavengers have their own form of democracy. It is difficult for us to imagine what life
is like for these people. We watch their
lives from the comfort of our home, or as part of a visit to a contemporary art
exhibition. People will disagree whether ‘A
New Silk Road, Algorithm of Survival and Hope’ offers hope or not. What the
art work does offer is an insight into the different values that people have, and the different
ways these people live their lives, as the pupils of Cefn Hengoed experienced for themselves last Friday morning.
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