Eurasian Cultural Alliance Public Association
Republic of Kazakhstan, Almaty
Nurmakov str, 79

For all inquires please contact vladislavsludskiy@gmail.com
«ღ» – Anna Kin's solo exhibition
The artistic project by the Almaty artist Anna Kin is an anti-colonial statement in response to the forced Sovietization of the cultures and languages of the peoples of Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe. For this project, the artist asks representatives of different nations to pronounce their alphabets, thus examining the condition of various ethno-linguistic groups after the imperial collapse and political transition. In the post-Soviet era, some languages are reclaiming their strength while others are losing it. "ღ" is an invitation to an affective conversation about the power of language, with the distinct individuality of each participant. The main protagonists of this project are people whose facial expressions and reactions unveil a complex context woven from echoes of childhood associations, unrealized potential of national identity, and sensual/emotional experiences of the world we live in. The project is in development, and Kin plans to continue expanding this video art collection as a lifelong project.

Anna Kin (b. 1999) is an artist currently engaged in anti-colonial artistic practices, socially engaged art, and healing practices. Her family is a mix of Ukrainians, Germans, and Russians. Her ancestors, Dutch carpenters forcibly resettled to the Caucasus during Catherine II's rule, later moved to Kazakhstan during the ethnic deportations in 1935. Her maternal grandfather hailed from Dnipro, Ukraine. Anna's Russian roots are from Petropavlovsk and Kirovsk regions. Like most of her peers, Anna was born in Almaty into a Russian-speaking family, although none of her grandfathers spoke Russian until they moved to Kazakhstan. Despite living in Kazakhstan as a third-generation immigrant, she feels a strong sense of belonging to Kazakh culture.
Anna Kin's project "ღ," named after the Georgian letter "ღ," whose form playfully echoes the symbol of the heart, directly imbues the statement on anti-colonial language policy with affect. Her work raises questions not only about how alphabets sound but also about how they animate our sensory and emotional experiences of the world. It explores how they enliven our attachment to political and social models in transitional periods. In her film, we see not only a decisive attempt to catalog the auditory and gestural world of languages during crises and transitions but also a work of art that challenges how we think about our affective and somatic embodiment of language in a broader sense. – Leah Feldman, professor at the University of Chicago, researching empire, nationalism, and critical approaches to ethnicity, gender, and sexuality in the Caucasus and Central Asia.