BALQAŞ JYRY / THE SONG OF LAKE BALKHASH

Artcom Platform

Since 2020, the women-led collective Artcom Platform has developed practices of care for Lake Balkhash, a vast inland body of water threatened by over-extraction, climate change, and plans for a nuclear plant along its shores. Balqaş Jyry (“The Song of Lake Balkhash”) emerges from this initiative as a video essay spoken in the voice of the lake itself, articulating the ecological and political pressures shaping its present condition.

Drawing on Qazaqlïq—the nomadic political tradition of steppe democracy grounded in mobility and resistance—the work reframes fugitivity as ecological method. The moving digital camera echoes the embodied perspective of riding horseback across the steppe. Presented within woven reed structures, called şym şi, the installation carries forward the collective practice of weaving as a form of shared knowledge and environmental stewardship.

Through digital media rooted in steppe cosmology, the work proposes care as both resistance and continuity—listening to the lake not as a resource, but as a living presence.

Artcom Platform

― Kunstenaar

Artcom Platform is a collective of artists, researchers and curators founded in 2015 in Almaty. Working at the intersections of contemporary art, ecology, and community engagement, Artcom develops community-based infrastructures of care rooted in the steppe and lake ecologies of Central Asia. In 2020 we initiated Care for Balkhash - open initiative of care, where together with local communities, cultural practitioners, and researchers we develop new forms of care for Lake Balkhash to safeguard its ecosystems. We weave together contemporary art, interdisciplinary research, and public education, creating spaces where communities, scientists, and cultural institutions can act together in response to ecological and social challenges. Artcom’s work has been presented internationally at biennales, exhibitions, and academic forums, while remaining deeply connected to local communities. The collective sees art as a form of solidarity, ecological justice, and care for memory and future generations.

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