Alisi Telengut

Tengri

OPening: Friday, 4 November, 6 – 9 pm

Duration: 5.11. - 13.11.2022

Additional Opening Times :

Wednesday – Sunday, 2 – 7 pm

Artist Talk: Sunday, November 13

curated by Keumwha Kim

The exhibition Tengri brings together a selection of animations, virtual reality, paintings and objects by Alisi Telengut from 2012 - 2022. They present her long standing preoccupation with human relationships to nature and the super-sensory - that is, with a realm of human experience that our senses cannot directly perceive. The Canadian artist of Mongolian origin, who lives and works in Berlin, was already fascinated in her childhood by the stories of her grandparents who used to live as nomads. Her films draw from these stories, from the legends of Mongolian cultural heritage and from her research into animism and shamanism. They tell of mountains, rivers and seas, of the sun and fire, of gods and ancestors. They celebrate an indigenous worldview and its special wisdom.

For her animated films, Alisi Telengut collects stones, plants, flowers, which are mixed with oil pastels and placed in the scene. Her films are created on a single base that is hand-painted and erased and changed “frame by frame”, thus "coming to life" to form a narrative. Through the applying and erasing, an idiosyncratic metamorphosis unfolds as embodied nature. The traces of colours are in constant motion, their richness and depth creating tangibility and vitality at the same time. Together with the narrative voices in Mongolian, music and sounds, they immerse visitors in a multi-sensory experience. In this way, Alisi Telengut's films re-awaken stories and legends, rituals and prayers from marginalized cultural and spiritual traditions. 

Against the backdrop of multiple environmental crises caused by humans, Tengri formulates the need to recover indigenous knowledge, animistic traditions and shamanistic wisdom for our planetary health. Alisi Telengut conveys forgotten cosmologies through the aesthetics of her animations and with the help of new technologies such as virtual reality. She weaves a dense pictorial web of symbolic and ritual meanings. With her works, the artist enriches the current postcolonial discourse with an animistic perspective. In this form of world knowledge, the human and the non-human can be experienced as a living interdependent unity in a fascinating way.

Alisi Telengut


Alisi is currently a PhD candidate in Scientific-Artistic Research (Dr. phil. in art.) at the Filmuniversitaet Babelsberg Konrad Wolf (Germany). She obtained her Master in Fine Arts in Studio Arts with an option in Film Production, and a Bachelor in Fine Arts in Film Animation at Concordia University (Canada). Alisi is a Canadian Screen Award nominee and a Québec Cinéma Awards - Prix Iris winner in Best Animated Film. Her work received multiple international awards and nominations, including the Best Short Film at Stockholm Film Festival (Sweden), Best Animated Film at Mammoth Lakes Film Festival (USA) and Brussel Independent Film Festival (Belgium), as well as a Jury Award at the Aspen Shortsfest (USA). Alisi's work has been screened and exhibited internationally, such as at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures (USA), the Canadian Cultural Centre at the Embassy of Canada in France, CICA Museum - Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (South Korea), UNESCO World Heritage Site Zollverein (Germany), Sundance Film Festival (USA), TIFF (Canada), Matthäikirchplatz am Berlin Kulturforum (Germany), among others.