Needs no Translation?

Discussion with curators about the representation of local identity in experimental video and cinema.

The discussion will be held in English and Russian with simultaneous translation.

The project Videobrasil. Needs No Translation addresses stories that combine video’s expressive means with body language and performative practices. One of the curatorial hypotheses proposes finding a hybrid video format that exists beyond the boundaries of states and languages, thus requiring no translation.

Sandra Kogut. Parabolic People (still), 1991. Video. Videobrasil Historical Archive

The speakers will address the need for linguistic and cultural translation of artistic works from Latin America, Central Asia, and Russia. Topics will include hybrid postcolonial identities, the role of festivals and other public video screenings, as well as similarities and differences in representing regional culture within global artistic processes.

Videobrasil is an art platform and a non-profit cultural association that researches, disseminates and debates the artistic production of the regions of the geopolitical South of the world—Africa, the Americas, Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania.

Participants

Aleksei Artamonov (Tashkent, Uzbekistan) is a curator, film critic, and independent researcher who has primarily worked with independent and experimental cinema in Central Asia. He is co-founder and curator of the NOMSIZ festival and co-curator of QYZQARAS, an initiative aimed at popularising Central Asian women’s cinema.

Alessandra Bergamaschi (São Paulo, Brazil) is an Italo—Brazilian curator, artist and researcher interested in the tensions between digitality and media archaeology. In 2023–2024, she co-curated Videobrasil | 40-Year Special at Sesc São Paulo. Previous projects include three editions of OLHO (2015–2019), itinerant exhibitions designed for movie theatres that showcased video works challenging cinematic language. Her essays on contemporary art and visual culture have been featured in periodicals including Ars (São Paulo), Revista Rosa, Aniki: Portuguese Journal of the Moving Image, Concinnitas. Her works have been shown at Centro Cultural Hélio Oiticica, Skånes Konstförening (Sweden), Doclisboa (Portugal), Festival de Documentários É Tudo Verdade (Brazil).

Diana Galimzyanova is a film director, video artist, and performer. She curates the Bomba Video Club at the Bomba Gallery of the Fabrika Centre for Creative Industries and the Almaty Underground Screening Series film project. She directed the feature films The Brightest Darkness (2017) and Plan 9 from Aliexpress (2022). Diana’s works have been shown at more than 70 festivals and exhibitions in 20 countries.

Malika Mukhamedjan (Almaty, Kazakhstan) is a filmmaker, founder, and curator of QYZQARAS, an initiative promoting women’s cinema in Central Asia.

Moderator

Andrey Vasilenko (Moscow, Russia) is a curator and film critic. He studied architecture and philosophy at the Far East State University in Vladivostok. Since 2019, he has been a curator at V–A–C Foundation and GES-2 House of Culture. He is co-curator of the project Videobrasil. Needs No Translation. Four Decades of Video and Performance.