‘Video Forecast: A Selection of Video Art from Central Asia’ Exhibition at AUB

‘Video Forecast: A Selection of Video Art from Central Asia’ introduces the Lebanese public to contemporary artistic strategies and practices encountered today in the post-Soviet republics of Central Asia.

Over the past two decades these countries have been caught up in a spiral of political, social and cultural change. The transformations taking place in these five Central Asian states – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – are influenced by multiple historical and political factors; their continuing negotiation of a post-Soviet identity is shaped by the enduring heritage of the Soviet past, a resurgent nationalism, an Islamic revival (also including its radical forms) and pro-Western democratic aspirations.

The artists presented in this exhibition reflect, explore, or draw upon one or another of the contradictions found today in their countries – caught for two decades in a painful process of transition.