Rafael Vargas-Suarez and Dilbar Ashimbaeva covered the main wall of AUCA’s forum with a silk mural called “Assembly Complex”—AUCA’s newest permanent installation

October 17, 2016

The art project “Artystan” on the main wall of the central atrium in the AUCA campus was a temporary art work of Rafael Vargas-Suarez, a Mexican-born artist living in New York and working internationally. The temporary piece was put up with the idea that this year he would develop a more final art work. He decided to collaborate with Kyrgyz fashion designer Dilbar Ashimbaeva in turning AUCA’s its main wall to the silk, topographical map. Rafael and Dilbar told us about work experience and their first cooperative project “Assembly Complex” (2015-2016):

Rafael: I was here in October, 2015 and I met Dilbar. I quickly realized that she is a fashion designer and real artist – a master of her craft. Her work is all done by hand, detailed, complex and amazing. She has all the information about the history of the materials. I thought maybe she would be interested in collaborating with me on this artwork, because of her knowledge. I came here again in January, 2016, there were the first sit down work meetings to understand what we could do, and we educated each other, showing our own works. Both of us were interested in learning. We quickly realized that—even just as people—we have a good rapport, even though she does not speak English and I do not speak Russian. We always just understand each other. It is more about vision, energy, connection and respect. Both of us really respect each other and our work.

Dilbar: Kuma Medil, a young Kyrgyz designer living in New York, introduced Rafael to me. When Rafael Vargas-Suarez arrived in Bishkek, we met and showed each other our works and were impressed by the artwork. We thought it would be great to work together on something. When Rafael was invited to do a piece for AUCA, he already knew he would not be working alone, but rather with us, the Dilbar design group. My experience of cooperating with this American painter, who works only in a very contemporary style, was very interesting and useful for me, because I had to add motifs of landscape and Kyrgyz ethnical ornamental patterns very delicately and organically into Rafael’s strictest and uninterrupted graphic works.

Certainly, we faced a lot of difficulties like complex terminology, which couldn’t convey the exact meanings of our work when we talked, or merely technical and organizational issues. We wanted to finish our work before August so that AUCA students could see completed design in the Forum. But because of long negotiations, it took longer than planned, and as the academic year began we decided to work at nighttime for the mounting and installation.

The main idea of the project

Rafael: I was here basically making silk paintings and working with her and developing the idea of small silk paintings and embroideries. It is kind of a big topographical map; it is a very abstract version of map-like information. But all the images actually are mixture of my work and photographs that I have took of silks and lots of weavings, textiles. It is a combination of traditional materials with a digital and the computer manipulated image-making process. The whole thing was printed in a very large printer here in Bishkek. So the idea is a living, moving, and connected thing.

There was a lot of learning with Dilbar, learning about silk, materials, colors and histories of all of them. I was more the conceptualizer; she was more the technical, the more hands on. We shared our ideas with each other. The main concept is mine, but the main way to achieve that concept has been hers. But basically all the decision-making has been mutual, equal.

Dilbar: It took about one month of work in AUCA, but the preparations took almost a whole year. First drafts were submitted in the beginning of January, 2016. The main idea and purpose of this project is to unite the unique painting of Vargas-Suarez and state-of-the-art space of AUCA campus’s architecture with distinctive Kyrgyz culture, the best specimens of decorative-applied artworks of Central Asian nomadic nations. There are a series of wall paintings on the whole wall by the stairs and manual paintings combined with ornamental embroideries. This project itself is a part of the permanent exhibition of AUCA called Topographica.

Future plans

Rafael: I get inspiration from people, places, things. I am just feeding my curiosity. I realized that routine would be very detrimental to my work, I do not think I can benefit from just doing the same thing over and over. My nature is always to be very curious, I like learning. Each project is in a different place, and, even if it has my style and signature, the process is totally different. The project in AUCA was the most challenging of all the projects I have done so far. It has a lot to do with geography, language, and timing. We did not have a lot of time to plan it, but that does not mean I am not happy or I did not achieve what I wanted to do. There are always new surprises and challenges, it is interesting that you have all these problems to solve and I am pretty good at that. I do not want to do something I have done before.

I want to set up a studio here in Bishkek. I am very interested in creating my own work here, maybe doing “shyrdaks”. I see a lot of potential here for me to do. Nobody where I live and came from is doing what I would do here.

Dilbar: In the future, we will return to cooperation with Rafael. We don’t yet know what form our next cooperation will take. But we want to try everything – interior design, creating unique fabric prints, and carpet weaving with Gobelin tapestry. We wouldn’t even mind launching our own line of furniture! We learned that our creative aspirations resonate to virtually the same wavelengths.

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