Kazakhstan (Republic of)

Jerūiyq is a land from ancient Kazakh myths, sought by the steppe philosopher Asan Kaigy, who lived in the fifteenth century. The unattainable image of a promised land became the main theme of the exhibition Jerūiyq: Journey Beyond the Horizon. According to legends, throughout his life, Asan Kaigy dreamed of leading his nomadic people to lands where time stood still, and where there was no death, disease, or hunger. The word “Kaigy” translates from Kazakh as “sorrow”. The leitmotif of sorrow reflects the many attempts of utopias to materialize in the vast steppes, mirroring the dark side of modernity: craters from nuclear tests, the dried-up Aral Sea, hunger of 1930s and other scars on the body of the Kazakh land.
From the earliest works depicting utopian worlds to the latest artistic practices using artificial intelligence, this exhibition chronologically reveals the works of Kazakh artists on the themes of science fiction, non-human agency, and the decolonization of the future. In our time, with its permanent turbulent state, we are experiencing a crisis in envisioning new scenarios. Jerūiyq becomes a guiding star on the path to overcoming the crisis of imagination.