The Tselinny Center｜Conversations Platform

Program dedicated to the artistic scenes of Kazakhstan and Central Asia.

Proposed by Centre Tselinny de la Culture Contemporaine.

Thursday October 19

1.30pm - 1.45pm: Intro about the Program, Tselinny and participants

Word by Slavs&Tatars and Tselinny (15 mins)

1.45pm -  2.00pm: “Where is Kazakhstan?”

Tselinny Center of Contemporary Culture (15 mins)

2.00pm - 2.30pm: ‘’Decolonial thought in Kazakhstan” 

Diana Kudaibergenova (30 mins)

2.35pm - 3.35pm: “What does it mean to be Central Asian Today?”

Round Table Discussions (60 mins)

Dilda Ramazan (Rustam Khalfin Foundation) - moderator

Participants:  Saodat Ismailova, Diana Kudaibergenova (Cambridge University), Almagul Menlibayeva, Indira Dussebayeva-Ziyabek (IADA) , Alima Kairat (Tselinny), Jama NurkaIieva (Tselinny), Madina Joldybek

3.35pm - 4:30pm: “Does the Central Asian market exist?”:

Gallery conversation (55 mins)

Meruert Kaliyeva (Aspan Gallery), Vlad Sludskiy (Qazart), Danagul Tolepbay (Pygmalion Gallery)

Tselinny Center of Contemporary Culture is a regional institution that promotes cultural exchange to assist the local general public and enhance the artistic outreach to build an intellectual community by creating a dialogue within Kazakhstan latitude and the wider regional central Asian perspective. 

The Tselinny cinema was built in 1964 to the standard USSR design for large panoramic cinemas and immediately became one of the most popular recreation venues of the inhabitants of Soviet Alma-Ata. The building has been reworked several times since 2000. The first large-scale reconstruction significantly changed the appearance and functional layout of the building. All subsequent renovations extended secondary functions. 

In 2017, it was decided to transform the cinema into the Center of Contemporary Culture. The country’s first private cultural institution will focus on developing interdisciplinary interaction between contemporary culture and art. Reconstruction of the cinema began in late 2019 under the direction of the British architect Asif Khan, who aims to transform the building into a multifunctional space with an opening in Spring 2023.

Tselinny’s artistic strategy is based on the symbiosis between two motifs of Here and Now, a performative and research programme. Here is about Tselinny physical space where various formats of events will happen such as art exhibitions, film, and performance programmes and any other experimental forms. As a platform where local content is produced we hope to develop a dialogue to collaborate with actors of the current artistic scene, creating a non-fixed programme with different morning and evening regimes. Now is based on the research projects that are occurring at the moment and continuously in the future. It includes Documentation, Scholar-In-Residence programme and Publishing projects. All projects are formed on the basis of re-evaluating our past and moving forward appreciating our cultural future, rendering the underlying visible perspectives, theories and how relevant it is from a contemporary point of view. Tselinny will be a third space offering to be a shelter for all. 

By systematising institutional work Tselinny aims to build an academic circle of community, by raising and supporting a new generation of young art professionals and artists of the wider central Asian region to open up to the contemporary art scene. A further objective of Tselinny Center is to form a platform for open reflection and critical debate about emerging regional theorists, scholars and artists thereby bridging the gap between institutional work and the local society.