“mankurt” takes its name from a Kyrgyz legend, in which a “mankurt” is someone taken as a prisoner of war and tortured to forget his name, family and home. This two channel video/audio installation presents a telescoping view on the body as a topological entity controlled by social agencies; its relationship to politically controlled and regimented space.

 The project evokes the historical failure of claiming and constructing space and the effect that the spatial politics -- geographical and political -- had on the formation of constructs such as language and national identity. Such constructs play a role in development not only of the virtual identity (the identity of the “I” in the world) but on a tangible level mold the continuously subdividing cells in our bodies.