this project interrogates water infrastructure and strategic resource development as an instrument of imperial and colonial expansion in central asia. the industrial objects at the focus of our analysis controlled not only the distribution of water but also of regional power.
the construction of irrigation infrastructure and hydroelectric dams was instrumental in the internal colonialism of the USSR. following the collapse of the soviet union in 1991, its formerly federated states gained independence. during this process of decolonization, the centralized system of resource management and distribution ceased to exist and led to the intensification of tensions between the new neighboring nation-states.
today, the image of hydroelectric dams—both existing and speculative—is mobilized to exert symbolic, regional power through the production of scarcities.
studying the kyrgyz and uzbek hydro-industrial landscape, this project traces colonial and de-colonial arrangements of power through these objects.
this multi-media research aims to demonstrate that when infrastructures produced by a politics of domination remain untouched in the process of decolonization, the objects are predestined to reproduce the same hierarchies of (social) relation.
