Snap Out of The Past
Interview with Agil Abdullayev
Chinara Majidova
28th September 2020
Changes unearth now. You hear the snap of garden-fresh pea pod from afar - and here they are, crisp and juicy - ready to amend the obsolete. Agil Abdullayev, true to his beliefs in the alteration of the art scene in Azerbaijan, shared his thoughts on obstacles he had to face, future plans, and current conditions in the interview with Chinara Majidova.
Chinara Majidova
You are an interdisciplinary artist who now explores yourself as a curator. Recently you launched the online platform ÇAĞDAŞÇILAR, based on discussions about contemporary art in Azerbaijan. What are the primary mission of this platform and future plans for it?
Agil Abdullayev
ÇAĞDAŞÇILAR is an art critical platform that brings together local contemporaries (artists, as well as art crowd hanging here and there) for critical discussions. It’s something I had been thinking, writing, and planning for almost two years since I moved back to my hometown in Azerbaijan in late 2018. I guess as it happens to everyone coming back home after studying abroad for a long time, I was very much focused on recollecting memories, friends, and colleagues and looking in-depth on what I missed in the four years of my absence. One of the key things that didn't change, left unnoticed, and still harms artists in our local art industry, is the absence of a constructive cross-disciplinary approach to art-making and its management.
It's a globally unsustainable industry, but when we keep complaining and directing our issues at the wrong places without valid research or accurate sources, this small art industry in Azerbaijan might disappear or fall into predicament. To me, this whole situation felt like an endless dark tunnel, guiding us to nowhere. That's when I thought the scene is asking for a platform like ÇAĞDAŞÇILAR, to discuss and document our current post-modern art scene.
Today, we have four people on a team. We aim to establish a new and creative outlook on criticism by inviting local cultural professionals and art crowd to review ongoing local contemporary art exhibitions, education, art management, and artsy gossip. ÇAĞDAŞÇILAR’s discussions attempt to redefine the way art is presented nowadays and encourage artists to engage with criticism in the digital age, as well as to approach criticism by connecting to the art makers and goers through emotional and sensorial stories designed to provoke inspiration and debate. We also work on our ACA (Azerbaijani Contemporary Artists) database consisting of more than 300 artists (including but not limited to curators, painters, sculptors, directors, illustrators, photographers, art critics, and teachers). I would say that one of the main long term goals of ÇAĞDAŞÇILAR is to increase knowledge on the artistic and cultural heritage of Azerbaijan, as well as expand the recognition and outreach of Azerbaijani artists worldwide.
Chinara Majidova
Could you please tell us more about your latest project Two Snaps of Post-Modern Society? What is the project about? How did you select and cast interviewees and film characters? What was the reason behind your choice to make a piece about the gender role in Azerbaijani society, and why do you find it necessary?
Agil Abdullayev
In the last five years, educators in the women's rights field have redefined activism through hard work on gender equality. It took a new form of collaborating and influencing each other, made by small steps for significant changes. So my interest was to observe to what extent these improvements had an impact on the peripheries. I wanted to see whether this amazing work and voices of activists based in the capital reach the regions, and what these voices achieve in the villages with no electricity. Even though the result varied from my initial idea, the Two Snaps of The Post-Modern became my first documentary film. For this, I traveled to Qakh in the north, then Selibur, known as a village situated in Azerbaijan's highest peak. Also, traveled, perhaps, to the two most conservative regions in the south - Lerik and Lankaran. Mostly, I stayed in small neighborhoods for a few days learning about their local lifestyle, and sometimes getting into "tough conversations'' at the dinner table. For instance, questioning why female members do not sit at the table with the rest of the family. I was trying to emerge into their culture as much as possible in the short period, without forcing them into my narratives while making them feel comfortable around me and the camera.
The film juxtaposed against the interview with Aysel Akhundzade, one of the founding members of the feminist channel Femiskop; she is aware of the problems women face today on every level in such a patriarchal country like Azerbaijan. Questioning the performance of the activism in gender equality in post-modern society with consideration to Azerbaijan and history of the Western feminism, as well as relations between city and village, public and private, the film highlights the issues regarding women's right in Azerbaijan, from our daily lives to major issues, such as catcalling, sexism, gender bias, economic inequality, access to equal opportunities, the lack of girls’ education, early marriage, and others. Women are involved in all parts of society, but some matters affect them more than others - from the power of the women's vote in politics to the participation in the decision-making on reproductive rights and the pay gap. Hence, it was and is vital to bring this to focus andl tell a story of how female identities are shaped here within current radical cultural and historical complexities, and how the misogynistic behaviors are traumatizing all of us, and not only women.
Chinara Majidova
Two Snaps of Post-Modern Society, we often see your signature techniques: green curtains and symbolic animation. What was the idea behind using these techniques as artistic tools? Does it mean something to you?
Agil Abdullayev
Oh! That’s easy. As a person with ADHD, I tend to make referential visuals that keep me, and the audience focused on watching the video until the end. I also think it makes the film lighter when stories are visualized with and from different contents.
But the chrome key always played a role of free-imagination and softness in my works, which sort of allows the audiences to see whatever they want behind the person on the video, and it expands our views based on the told story topics.
Chinara Majidova
What was the starting point for you in your practice?
Agil Abdullayev
Post-traumatic painting. I wasn’t in a very good place in my life when I started making art, and as cliché as it sounds, it was painting. It was the most accessible medium I could find in the art shop near my university, where I studied computer engineering. Today I am happy, and I haven’t made a single painting in the last six years. Ideally, I would love not to label myself and leave this to others. Still, I guess in today’s interconnected world, being categorized as an interdisciplinary artist fits with what I am doing. I make art that mostly manifests through video, performance, photography, screen-print. I also write essays, and I am a researcher, curator, and visual thinker who tries to develop employable skills like adaptability, open-mindedness, self-management, problem-solving, and resilience.
Chinara Majidova
Nowadays, you are one of the artists in Azerbaijan who works on projects about queer culture. Your recent project, “Loud Sirens of the Caspian Bodies” was presented at the Salaam Cinema Baku. Tell us more about this project. What was the outcome of the exhibition for you? To what extent do you think the public in Azerbaijan open to discuss and accept queer community?
Agil Abdullayev
Her name is Rashida. Lady Adele Rashida Baghlava. She is my teenagehood alter-ego that I came up with when I had my first sexual experience. She sort of stayed with me ever since then, even later, when I fully accepted my queer body and identity. But when I was telling about her to my dear friend Christos (who is a drag queen in between many things), he suggested creating Rashida physically and making a photo-performance with her, which was very unusual for me as I had never seen physically any of my alter-egos or imaginary friends. That’s how this whole work was done. Later, upon my return to Baku, I showed a heavily edited version of Loud sirens of the Caspian bodies in Salaam Cinema’s opening exhibition. Images in the piece reflect cultural, historical, and social impacts on forming our queer bodies and identities.
My content becomes heavy and bitter in attempts to discover my identity and its cultural, social, and historical complexities. It is contrasted with queerness, although my visuals are relatively mild and subtle. They are not very “queer,” which might be overly controversial content for Azerbaijan. Most of the questions coming from the public were related to Rashida’s gender. People would ask if “it’s a girl or boy.” In one of the works, Rashida stands in the hall while the framed pictures around her convey her sexual desires. At this point, I think art in Azerbaijan has an enlightening educational purpose; therefore, as long as we as artists have the privilege of influencing people’s bits of knowledge and understanding about gender and sexuality, we have to be very careful with how we do it, so we don’t fall into the rabbit hole of creating new clichés about LGBTQ+ communities that can potentially harm them, while most are looking for acceptance.
Chinara Majidova
In May 2019, you curated a group show “Women with mustaches and men without beard.” Please share your thoughts with us on curatorial experience? What difficulties did you encounter during the curatorial process? How did your experience of being an artist help you curate the project, and would you like to continue?
Agil Abdullayev
It was the first time I curated an exhibition in Azerbaijan that opened at the same time with Salaam Cinema's queer and feminist film festival “IN-VISIBLE,” hence it was very crucial for me to bring together artists whose practices are loud and queer. The exhibition opened the discussion on the eastern queer history, the new shape of gender and sexuality in Azerbaijan’s culture and politics, and how these changes have influenced concepts of family, love, nationality, marriage, and citizenship..
At the time, I was also a managing member of Salaam Cinema. While working with such artists as Rene Matić, Ilkin Huseynov, Taus Makhacheva, as well as artist collectives AZAD LGBTQ and EQUALS was very smooth and joyful, there was a clash with directors of the space during the management and installation, which made the environment feeling toxic. I was feeling very anxious and responsible for the exhibition's every tiny detail all the time. At that point, Salaam Cinema was trying to institutionalize the place, which I think is a rubbish thing to do when your space is already loved as an alternative and independent art space. The whole experience made me feel upset but at the same time helped me to recognize why we have so few curators in Azerbaijan, leaving me feeling sorry for those 3-4 local curators working in this sector.
Chinara Majidova
What are you working on at the moment?
Agil Abdullayev
In my daily activities, I am mostly focused on the management of ÇAĞDAŞÇILAR, as it is all very new for me. For the past two years, I have been researching the local contemporary art scene and currently working on finishing my essay. The essay plays a role of a VR guide that navigates a viewer through a tall building allowing them to explore the artistic community. It is the third part of my research, which initially comprises four parts that deal with analysing the art scene of the last decade in Azerbaijan. The research is focused on the scene that once was dominated by exclusivity but now centered around the positive radicalism of inclusivity. However, we can’t observe these changes being followed in the management of organizations and artistic communities.
Currently living and working in his hometown, Agil Abdullayev manifests his practice by blending conceptual essays, humor, and social commentary through a combination of video, installation, and performance. Agil’s works were shown in group and solo exhibitions internationally. Abdullayev was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2018 and was a recipient of Attic Residency by One Throsby Street in Nottingham, UK. He was awarded individual project grants by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, BKA Eastern grant for Summer Academy in Salzburg, and Cittadellarte for Community Based Projects, in 2019. In 2017, alongside artist and curator Emily Simpson, Agil co-founded the online residency and exhibition space WUU2? He was a member of the independent art and film space Salaam Cinema Baku from 2019 to 2020. Agil Abdullayev is a founder of the critical thinking and artists’ discussion platform “Çağdaşçılar” that was launched in May 2020.
Chinara Majidova graduated from the International Law Department of Baku State University in 2010 and has worked as a writer, painter, and video artist ever since. She was a contributing photojournalist and writer for the Ajam Media Collective, working on projects such as Mehelle charting the disappearance of the historic Baku district called Sovetski, and for Chai Khana, a multimedia platform covering diverse events and issues in the South Caucasus. She participated in several local and international group exhibitions spanning art and journalism and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Cultural Heritage Policy and Management at the Central European University in Vienna.
Editing&Translating: Tamara Khasanova