I like Korean sea seeds salad. I eat it like all other Kazakhstani inhabitants, whether Kazakh, Russian, Chechen, Georgian, Korean, or any other of the 138 nationalities in Kazakhstan. Sea-seeds contain iodine, which is lacking in our water. We just go to the bazaar and buy it in a huge row of Korean stands, full of spicy, colorful dishes. We never think about how Koreans or any other nationality or diaspora came to make their home in Kazakhstan.

Mostly, it happened in the thirties, at Stalin's behest. He regarded Kazakhstan as a good place for a global international experiment. On the1st of November 1938, he issued a confidential decree for the deportation of a large Korean diaspora from the Soviet Far East to Central Asia, on the grounds that they represented a danger to the State. He was sure that each Korean could be a Japanese spy, and cause Russia a lot of harm in its war with Japan. But nobody told people why they had to leave their houses within 24 hours. Soldiers just loaded two trains with 1826 Korean families and moved them to various places. Many of the Korean people died of hunger and illness during the trip. 19000 Koreans were finally moved to Buchara, Kyzyl-Orda, Karaganda, Dzhambul and other places. That is why Koreans became one of the largest diasporas in Kazakhstan. According to the census held in 1989, there were 103315 Koreans in Kazakhstan. However, as a Russian saying goes: »Happiness happened due to unhappiness,« so now it's impossible to imagine any business without the bright representatives of the Korean diaspora in Kazakhstan. In the field of contemporary art, there are three artists with Korean roots - Natasha Kim, Valera Kaliev, Sasha Ugay - that I would like to introduce. They are young, and started their artistic career only a few years ago. I discussed the topic of their national identification with them. Here are some extracts from our conversation.

[b]Natasha:[/b] I don't like myself. I am shy as I am so small and live in the province. I like bright and beautiful people, and that's why I made my video »I love Naomi, Naomi loves fruits.« I really appreciate bright people like Naomi Campbell or Salvador Dali, for example, regardless of their nationality.

[b]Valera:[/b] Hmm... I never think about my national identity myself, you know, I am partially Korean - my Mom is Korean, and my Daddy is Kazakh. I recall this only when Kazakh people ask me why I do not speak Kazakh. But I don't speak Korean either.

[b]Sasha:[/b] Me neither, I only know »Hello,« »Goodbye« and some idiomatic words… and the names of the Korean dishes, of course… I like our dishes. I like it when my Grandma sends me soya paste from Kyzyl-Orda, where my family lives. I am more interested in the Soviet-Kazakh history of my family. All of them worked hard. For example, my grandfather was the captain of a ship on the Aral Sea, when my family was living in Aralsk and it was still a real sea. I am going to take a trip to the Aral Sea with a few friends this November. We will interact with local people and do »Holy performances.« We will take their pictures, and then create video objects and CD-ROMs. It will be like sailing directions for the Aral Sea. I have old sailing directions from the year 1956. I’d like to compare them with the current situation, where the Aral Sea has diminished to become a sand bank...

[b]Valera:[/b] Listen, take me with you to the Aral - it is a dangerous area, and I shall be able to help. What's more, I think you need one more photographer. I will just finish my work on my last video project about Tamgaly Petroglifes, which again is about my personal, not my national identity. I am just curious about different interesting topics, and so I cannot choose any mainstream subjects for my art. It should be something to do with camera - photo, video - something like that.

[b]Natasha:[/b] I also prefer to work with new technologies - computer animation, 3D-graphics, video art. But sometimes I use my Korean face in my work, as in the last work »My Father is Korean, my Mother is Alien.« But it is also more a personal identification than a national one. And with a lot of humor; it isn't anything serious - not a kind of searching for or missing of my national roots…

[b]Sasha:[/b] Exactly, for me it is also more important to create my own mythology, and sometimes I use my ethnic background, but more in the way of using the Far Eastern cultural heritage. For example, I am using Japanese music in the video-performance »Tea Ceremony.« Sometimes I write pornographic haikai - as you know, these are Japanese poems - and sometimes I write short mythological stories about myself, like »Comrade Li« (my Mom's surname is Li).

[b]Valera:[/b] My Mom's surname is Kim, but I never refer to my Korean roots at all. I don't like to and I am not interested in the topic… Maybe this happened as a result of the atmosphere in my native city of Karaganda. I am currently working for a judicial newspaper as a photographer, and can witness too many things relating to the crime situation. It is an interesting subject for the identification of our recent Soviet past. I am more interested in this field, and as the result my works are mostly devoted to it. For example, »Ornaments,« when I made a kind of a carpet from the pictures which I took in prisons, at communist meetings, parades and so on. It doesn't mean that I don't like any Soviet influence. I was happy in my pioneer childhood and I liked the feeling of equality which I experienced in the past.

[b]Sasha:[/b] I also hate it when people start to class you according to your nationality, and it's so uncomfortable in our multicultural society. Once I fought with a Russian guy who called me »Korean,« not by my name. Actually, I believe that soon there will be a multinational population on the Earth. I do not want to live in a place where you can only see the same nationalities. And I like to use the international heritage of human beings as the background for my works. Whether a direction is defined as a European or Oriental one depends only on its message. Actually, I am more a nomad than a Korean…

[b]Valera:[/b] Well, »East is a special thing to understand…« By the way, do you remember our journey during the »Non-Silk Way« project? ...

And then we started our dinner, eating rice and sea-seeds, and remembered some of the situations we experienced during our joint projects. These guys were very helpful to me as a curator during all these projects. And I have finally realized that there is something special about them which distinguishes them from other Kazakhstani artists. Maybe it is some sort of oriental wisdom, maybe tolerance, maybe some special politeness, maybe more experience in technical scales, maybe something else, or all together. I like this »something« and can not imagine our multicultural art-kitchen without this Korean ethnic »spice«.

 

 

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