Interview with Saule Suleimenova about her art
Saule Suleimenova is a visual artist who works with different materials like collophane. N her art she combines photography and painting and deals with topics like Kazakhstans colonial past and the modern kazakh world with it‘ s ecological and political themes. The interview was taken in June 2024 by Lena Muchin.
L: In Europe, the Friday for Future movement has awakened many minds to the drastic consequences and dangers of climate change. Is your art also a form of environmental activism that addresses our violation of our mother earth and would you describe it as political or purely artistic?
S: My artistic practice is a way of expressing some important ideas and connecting with people through art. I’m not interested in purely art and I’m sure that art is always avout politics even artist prefer to escape from. As soon as I work with plastic trash I firstly speak about this problem. Medium is the message. Also plastic is about memory, often residual memory because plastic hardly dissolves in the ground like human memory stays in our subconscious. Also my practice with plastic is quite dangerous for my health so each art work of mine is a kind of challenge.
L: With your art you give your people a voice and tell stories that also effect other peoples of Kazakhstan. Why do you think storytelling is important and what role does the artist play here?
S: As artist I’m not interested in imagination but i like go to the documents of times. So in this way it’s possible to emphasise to what I choose as pure beauty which is equal to truth for me. Qandas (returnees) people for example are mostly invisible so to show their beauty is a way to make them visible. Also plastic in my cellophane painting attracts people from different ages and circles so it‘s good opportunity to talk about what worries me. So I think the most important in art ist to make accent.
L: The Kazakh historical and cultural landscape is shaped by sad events that you also take up in your artwork, for example the Asharshylyk. To what extent is visualization of such topicsnecessary in art, what means can art use to create new space for refelction?
S: Basically in art, when talking about soemthing such as asharshylyk, an instructive, mourful or edifying tone is chosen, I’d like to avoide this. I prefer to just give a voice to those people and thus show the viewer that they were the same people. This ist he only way, I think, to reach every person.
It is necessary to talk about asharshylyk in ordert o, through memory, return to people their dignity, acceptance of themselves with everything that was and is.
forced sedentarization is also part of our common identity.
L: If language is a carrier of memories, then visual art can transport memories through images, which gives it an enormous potential for dialogicity. What audience are your pictures aimed at and do you believe (like J. Beuys) that everyone can be an artist? S: everybody is an artist. Yes, I don’t singel out any special circle of people who can understand what I’m doing. My materclasses involve a variety of people of different ages and backgrounds, and it‘s very interesting how they see. For exapmle, several times I offered to talk about water using plastic bags, and it’s always amazing how differnt and beautiful
Jablonja 