Darya.Andijan
A filmmaker and visual artist in exile
Born in XinJiang, China, now studying master at the Netherlands Film Academy.
She utilizes the carpet as a reflective process, weaving symbolism, myth, and family history to activate the healing power of the ‘divine feminine’ and explore themes of oppression.
In her artistic research, 'Seeking for Mothers in Mother-Tongue,' she explores motherly figures in Turkestan's history and myths through carpet weaving, examining how the stories are told and passed on in different forms without being erased.
daryaaagul@outlook.com
https://daryaa.net/
Expanded cinema, 2024
We didn’t speak English at the English Garden
What does it mean to speak in an imprisoned language?
Darya reunites with her cousin after a decade apart, during a time when her cousin is grappling with bipolar disorder. As they confront the fear and love tied to speaking their mother tongue in a foreign land, they seek solace and healing in their shared experiences.
This intimate encounter unfolds as a live performance, a text, interwoven with footage of their reunion, capturing the complexities of identity, belonging, and the emotional weight of language as they strive to mend their fractured connection.
The text is going to be published in the second volume of Under the Mulberry Tree, 2025.
Watch the video here (without performance):
https://vimeo.com/1043964622?share=copy
password:englishgarden
Excerpts from the text
“After she get on the plane, I still refused to go, so they have to sent me back to my friends again. Years later, i heard the Uighur translator guy was dead in the Istanbul airport attack.”
Maybe we’re still walking, or sitting, i don’t know what to respond. At this moment, I don’t trust words anymore. Those unspoken words left in the chat frame, left on the top of our tongue, left on the other side of the phone call, have betrayed us. Especially for her, S, I know those words are still hunting her at night, are they Uighurqe? Mandarin? Or Turkish?
How much of this truth can I bear to see and still live unblinded?
How much of this pain
can I use?
― Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
This is not an easy story to tell.
Experimental short, WIP, 2024
Recording 2:
Lady Of Heaven
This is a journey through the skies on a flying carpet with my grandmother who has suffered from imprisonment.
As they soar, the carpet transforms into a tapestry of Sumerian myths, dreams, and fragmented memories, intertwining the past with the present of maternal history in Turkestan.
Installation
Screening at CBK-Zuidoost
Expanded Cinema, WIP, 2024
Do you know that I’m with you
How can we reimagine a future from our past?
Following “Gülam”, a female figure who shared the same name as carpets in the uyghur language, I’m trying to collect different pieces of her beings in various realities: archives, myth, news, fabrics, my body.
In using these materials I’m creating a non-linear narration which allows multiple realities of Gülam to co-exist.
‘Do you know that I’m with you’ was filmed in Uzbekistan, and benefited from the kind support of Binafsha Nodir, Gulnora chorieva, and various carpetmakers . The project is being currently developed and awaiting final cut soon.
The final work would entail a performance by me alongside fabrics, carpets and a video installation.