Luiza Parvu, Toma Peiu

video, color, 14 mins, 2019

Public space interactions between human, non-human, and water bodies, in the town of Moynaq, Qaraqalpaqstan, Uzbekistan. Between dematerialization and embodiment, the scarce supply of water determines the uses of shared space, mediating the rituals of the organic and inorganic everyday.

Only a generation ago, Muynaq was a port town by the Aral Sea, one of the world’s largest endorheic lakes. Today, it is the one of the most arid places on the planet and the site of “the world’s largest man-made ecological disaster”, according to the United Nations.

The climate is deteriorating, with toxic salt-and-sand storms increasing in frequency. The summer of 2018, when these scenes were captured, was one of the hottest on record.

For locals, nostalgia and hopes for the return of the absent sea have given way to more pragmatic expectations of wise management of the current hydrological resource, trickling North from the depleted Amu Darya river, as well as hopes for economic revival reliant upon the budding extraction industry and migrant labor in Kazakhstan and Russia.

This short film premiered as a video installation at WILD | TAME – an exhibition curated by NEST @ SEEC University of Colorado Boulder: February 21st – May 23rd, 2019.

Generously supported by the 2018 NEST Graduate Fellowship.