Museum of Banishment: Duma’s Caucasus; Occult.; Conquest and Deportation; Caucasus in Literature; Russian Orientalism

Employing the fictive as an operational mode, Fatima Uzdenova is interested in examining and subverting the mechanisms of the museum and its role as an institutionalised power structure, disseminator of knowledge and legitimiser of representation.

Revisiting the history and collective trauma of deportation from the Karachay Republic in North Caucasus to Central Asia through the prism of museology, she created an assemblage of objects-heirlooms, a bibliography and performances as the foundational work of an institutional critique.

In essence, heirlooms serve as holders of histories, stories and oral history in general and were/are an incredibly important part of Karachay heritage, in the absence of written language prior to the early 20th-century.