How to make a mazar
2019 - 2021
interactive website, video game
A research-based project. My trips in central Asia in search of mazars led me to this project. As sites with healing powers, mazars lie in the illusory imagination of shamanic locations, Sufi holy tombs, communist sanatoriums and post-communist placebos.
I checked the oral history materials on mazars and found frequent references to the imagery of a white snake that was the owner of a particular mazar. People also mentioned leaning on some kind of mazar to cure back pain or phobias, but as shown in the video on the website, in the brutal neoliberal society of the post-communist era, the homeless lean on the white snake-like heating pipe to survive and enter the dream.
This ambiguity of mazars, and their often invisible nature, made me want to make a Mazar in a virtual space. Mazar's hydrotherapy is like a clue pointing to the virtual space: if a person is confined to a restricted environment without light and sound, and immersed in warm water, he/she will soon begin to hear and see...