The discussion follows the screening of 'What We Shared' at Pushkin House on 16 June 2022.

In her film, artist Kamila Kuc answers this question by addressing the nature of memory and archives in relation to Abkhazia, an autonomous region on the Black Sea. The 1992-93 military conflict in this territory between the Abkhazian and Georgian armed forces led to the loss and displacement of many who lived there. The artist uses re-imaginings of seven inhabitants’ dreams and stories, auto-fictional narration and archival materials processed using AI technology to examine the unstable distinction between fact and fabrication. What We Shared serves as a powerful force that connects different generations and geographical zones to resist dominant power structures.

Kamila Kuc is a multimedia artist whose hybrid works explore the transformative potential of apparatuses, dreams and memories in the creation of societal myths and narratives. Of particular interest to her practice are stories that subvert dominant narratives of history, especially those relating to post-Soviet identities. She is a 2021 Jarman Award and IWC Schaffhausen Filmmaker Bursary Award in association with the BFI nominee. Her films have been officially selected and screened at many festivals and galleries worldwide: the Edinburgh International Film Festival; CROSSROADS; Ann Arbor Film Festival; Anthology Film Archives New York; Studio Gallery, Warsaw; Whitechapel Gallery; British Film Institute; and Institute of Contemporary Arts and Visions in the Nunnery, London. She is the author and editor of numerous books and articles on experimental media, including Visions of Avant-Garde Film (Indiana University Press) and the Founder and Director of Dark Spring Studio, a London-based production company dedicated to the production and distribution of artist moving image works that focus on stories that are personal and that are committed to social change.

Thomas de Waal is a scholar and writer, whose work centres around the Caucasus, the Black Sea, Ukraine, Russia and Brexit. He is a Senior Fellow with Carnegie Europe and author of a number of books, including Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War (NYU Press, second edition 2013) and The Caucasus: An Introduction (Oxford University Press, second edition 2018).

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