Multimedia Project by ZMO's research fellow David Leupold and Lilit Dabagian (University of Central Asia)
23.01.2020
What role plays Soviet materiality not only in conjuring up the spectre of a discredited past but in forging the vision of an alternative future? The virtual exhibition "Relicts of Another Future" by the media researcher Lilit Dabagian (University of Central Asia) and our postdoctoral research fellow David Leupold (Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient) seeks to find an answer to this question, shedding light on the internationalist legacy that lies at the foundation of today's Bishkek: Interhelpo.
Founded in 1924 by Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, German internationalists around the mountaineer Rudolf Pavlovič Mareček in the Czechoslovakian town Žilina, the industrial cooperative actively shaped urbanization in what would become the capital of the nascent Kirghiz SSR. Through personal photographs and historical documents “Relicts of Another Future” seeks to give back a voice to the city-builders of a century ago and allow them to speak again to the residents of a crisis-ridden today.