Film Screening and Discussion: Gulmira’s Fairy Tales by Gluklya

The U-M Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies (CREES) presents a screening of Gulmira’s Fairy Tales followed by a discussion with artist Gluklya (Natalia Pershinaya-Yakimanskaya), U-M Professor of Art Irina Aristarkhova, and CREES Director Elizabeth King.

Gluklya, a pioneer of Russian performance art, was invited by the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow to participate in artistic research on post-Soviet colonialism. Her film, Gulmira’s Fairy Tales (2022), is the collaborative result of the stories Gluklya gathered from female garment workers during her visits to Kyrgyzstan in 2021-22.

The compelling performance by actress Gulmira Tursunbaeva, who plays the role of a TV host telling feminist fairy tales, cuts to scenes of dance and street performance in Bishkek. Today, as there is no limit on work hours, which was not the case during the Soviet era, the emphasis shifts to efficiency and output, often at the expense of worker well-being. The stories in this film are based on the personal narratives of the seamstresses, materials from the human rights organization Open Line, and the Moscow Archive of Female Workers in the USSR.