In Memory (Kazakhstan)

“A few months ago I asked myself “how did I end up in Almaty?” I was born here, my parents were too, and my grandparents came here from different parts of the USSR in search of a better life. And they found it here. I began to research the motives for their move, their impressions. At the same time, I researched how the city was changing around them. The result was a performance in which I tell the story of my ancestors and the city in different ways. In terms of genre, it is close to a performative lecture, but I call it a performance. One big story, which I collected piece by piece, has everything you need for a dramatic play. An important part of the performance is the process of my research itself. I will tell you how I restored the lost names of relatives and looked for the disappeared villages where they were born on the map. How I collected archival photographs of my native Almaty and small Soviet towns that I had never been to. Our city and streets changed names, people came and went, buildings were built and torn down, but is there something left of what my great-grandfather fell in love with in 1950? This is what my play is about.”

– Mark Kuklin