11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

Her Right (still) 2020 / Single-channel video collage: black and white, stereo, 14 minutes / Music: Seaming To / Commissioned by Video Jam, UK / Courtesy: The artist / Photograph: Rocío Romero Rivas NOTES 1 ‘Saodat Ismailova and Dina Akhmadeeva in conversation’, in Marente Bloemheuvel (ed.), Saodat Ismailova: 18 000 Worlds , Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam, 2023, p.23. 2 Ismailova obtained footage from the Central State Archive of Film, Photo and Sound Documents for the Republic of Uzbekistan. 3 The Jadid movement for women’s emancipation within Uzbekistan already existed at this time, and was brutally suppressed, with reformists executed at the hands of the Soviet Federal Security Service. 4 The story of Nurkhon Yuldashkhojayeva — one of the first Uzbek actresses to appear on stage without a chachvan (veil) in 1928, who was killed at the age of 16 by her brother as part of an ‘honour killing’ — caught Saodat’s imagination, with ‘Nurkhon’ being the original title for her film. Ismailova was also inspired by the writing of academic Marianne Kamp and film critic Gulnara Abikeyeva. See Kamp’s The New Woman in Uzbekistan: Islam, Modernity, and Unveiling under Communism , University of Washington Press, Seattle, WA, 2006; see <jstor. org/stable/j.ctvcwncc0>, viewed March 2024. 5 Bloemheuvel, p.23. You can rewrite the book of history, you can rewrite the history of the country, but you cannot hide the history that happened from cinema, because it grasps it. Saodat Ismailova 1 Saodat Ismailova investigates the vivid history and culture of her home country of Uzbekistan and neighbouring regions in her films, videos and installations. She focuses her astute eye on the representation of women, and draws from oral histories, ritual, folklore and cultural heritage, as well as cinematic traditions. Ismailova’s training as a filmmaker and close engagement with Central Asian cinema is apparent in Her Right and Her Five Lives , both 2020. These ‘visual essays’ blend historical footage with new soundtracks, and incorporate elements of seldom-seen films from the 1920s to 2000s by directors Vyacheslav Viskovsky (1881– 1933), Latif Fayziyev (1929–94), Ali Khamrayev (b.1937), Shuhrat Abbasov (1931–2018), Elyor Ishmukhamedov (b.1942), Kamara Kamalova (b.1938) and Mikhail Averbakh (1904–80). 2 In Her Right and Her Five Lives , Ismailova carefully selects and juxtaposes scenes featuring female protagonists from films by these male directors. Her Right brings to light the policy of Hujum (attack), which commenced in 1927 during the early Soviet era (1917–91). Hujum was instigated by the Soviets to enact rapid cultural transformation by targeting Uzbek women wearing chachvan (veils) and paranja (robes). Ostensibly a progressive policy championing gender equality and increased freedom, in reality, it politicised and enforced unveiling as part of an attempt to eradicate Islamic practices and customs. It also resulted in moving women out of the home and into the fields and factories — essentially replacing patriarchal control with that of the State. 3 This was an era of fear and violence, with women caught between their religion, their families and the State, in which they faced abuse and threats from all sides. Uncovering the legacy of these events and their residual trauma, Her Right acknowledges the women who lost their lives during this time. 4 For Her Five Lives , Ismailova focused on researching archives and cinematic history to explore female archetypes in Uzbek cinema between the 1920s and the 2000s, and how these paralleled political and social developments. Using intertitles, Her Five Lives is divided into five sections. Initially, dramatic scenes from early Soviet propaganda films show women as victims, threatened and attacked by ominous male figures, before the scenes shift to those from social realist films, in which women are active participants in the proletariat, collecting cotton and driving tractors. The third cinematic period is marked by ruler Nikita Khrushchev’s ‘Thaw’ of the mid 1950s and a relative freedom in filmmaking. Using these scenes, Ismailova highlights how women were represented as individuals expressing their own desires and ambitions for the first time. However, with Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika (‘restructuring’) movement emerging in the late 1980s, the female archetype shifted to a less nuanced one of sexual liberation and hedonism, perhaps a symptom of rapid social change. The final section addresses the period following Uzbekistan’s independence in 1991, a transitional moment poised between the past and the future. The female actors in these scenes depict characters who are independent, but uncertain, with ill‑defined identities. As if in answer to this, Ismailova weaves through footage from her 2014 film Forty Days of Silence , which considers the resurgence of pre-Islamic rituals and spiritual practices — largely associated with women — as sources of inner strength and communion. While Saodat Ismailova draws on work by male directors for Her Five Lives and Her Right , she highlights the complex female gaze, focusing on expressions of delight, love, confusion, betrayal, fear and joy. Both films illustrate her belief in the power of cinema to cut through ideology — she considers film to be ‘a vessel that carries and remembers everything’, if we can just understand how to see. 5 It is only through this understanding, Ismailova implies, that we can reconnect with the knowledge and traditions of the past to conceive new futures. ABIGAIL BERNAL BORN 1981, TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN LIVES+WORKS INPARIS, FRANCE+ TASHKENT SAODAT ISMAILOVA ARTISTS+PROJECTS ASIAPACIFICTRIENNIAL 112 — 113