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We are very proud that Mirjam Westen (Museum Arnhem) is curator of SHOW.08 on our ground floor.
Mirjam is organising a solo exhibition featuring work by Almagul Menlibayeva. We are looking forward to an exciting exhibition of video and photographic work that Amagul has created in recent years.
"I first encountered Almagul Menlibayeva's video works during the Venice Biennale in 2009. I was immediately captivated. The video images took me on a journey through the vast steppes of Central Asia, past tranquil scenes of Amazons dressed in fox fur, and introduced me to the radically changed landscape where the Aral Sea once was, once a prosperous region, but now a desert, caused by disastrous irrigation methods. Her work has stayed with me ever since. When Collectie De Groen invited me to be a guest curator, I didn't have to think long about my choice: a solo presentation of this artist's work. 
Menlibayeva unravels the identity of her native region, which was a Soviet republic for a long time. Inspired by the cultural traditions of her ancestors, legends and shamanistic rituals, she stages her mythological picture stories, without beginning or end, in which tradition and modernity rub against each other. She is searching for the collective experiences of the nomadic inhabitants of Kazakhstan. In particular, she gives voice to the female experience. In her work, women and children stride surrealistically through vast steppes and desolate buildings; their presence connects the present with the past, the visible with the invisible forces. Thanks to their organic way of life, the nomadic population treats nature with respect. This stands in stark contrast to the irreversible pollution of the steppes as a result of decades of nuclear testing and the current military and aerospace industry.
 
The “Transoxian Dreams” in the title refer to “Transoxiana”, the area that is central to Menlibayeva's work. Transoxiana was the Greek name for the eastern part of the Hellenistic regime under Alexander the Great. It was located between the Oxus and Jaxartes rivers and was originally the habitat of nomadic tribes. This area in Central Asia, partly located in present-day Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, was for centuries an important region for trade with flourishing civilisations and fertile plains. Menlibayeva weaves this history into stagings in which orphaned protagonists wander through (invisibly polluted) vast steppes and desolate buildings.