Volga

2015 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

The video work Volga by Aslan Goisum begins with a sweeping field caught under a misty, gray sky. In the center of the frame is a white car of the eponymous Soviet make—standard-issue for the imperial administrative class during the USSR’s ‘Period of Stagnation.’ The vehicle is the only indication of cultural geography in the video; what unfolds must be somewhere in the former USSR. In a slow crescendo of activity and tension, small groups of men, women, and children, walk up to the car and squeeze into it. The situation presented is one of hurried escape, as experienced by hundreds of thousands during the Russian-Chechen Wars of 1994–2009. Yet, the twenty-one passengers allow themselves to be swallowed by the car with calm and dignity. Despite the absurdity, their reactions are allegorical for travel in a wider and less urgent sense, or even as a stoic display of dark humor. Goisum often approaches uncomfortable truths indirectly, elliptically, bringing to the fore the spectral encounter between the seen and the unseen. It is there that lived experience becomes poetic image: both expansive field and precisely scripted action. Volga , like much of Goisum’s work, mines memory—collective and personal, political and cultural—for clues about colonial realities, how they have been endured, and how they might be undone.

Chechen artist Aslan Goisum’s work engages with memories–collective and personal, political and cultural–to unearth clues about colonial realities, how they have been endured, and how they might be undone. Gosium’s primary artistic tools span moving image, sculptural installation, and various paper-based techniques. Identities frequently come into play in his work, as embodied effects of violence and suffering, but also as potential new beginnings.

Colors: