ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Lesia Pagulich and Tatsiana Shchurko offer a discussion with the artists Ruthia Jenrbekova and Maria Vilkovisky from Almaty (Kazakhstan), creators of an imaginary art-institution Krёlex zentr. This interview brings to the fore how the creative practitioners imagine transformative forms of community and identification within the post-Soviet landscapes of Central Asia. Krёlex zentr uses poetics to unfold language and vocabulary that make visible experiences and struggles erased by the normative scripts of Eurocentric thinking. Engaging with the concept of créolisation as a point of inquiry, the artists offer “krёling” as a political choice not to identify in fixed and settled terms of nationality/ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. Inspired by the insights from the Caribbean writers, the artists offer ways to unsettle habitual ways of thinking about subjectivity, identity, agency, and resistance in the post-Soviet context.
