ALZhIR/Algeria (2024)

Artist book

Poetry: Egana Jabbarova

Handmade paper from wormwood with added mass of recycled cash receipts

Cover-case made from reed stems

Inkjet printing, monotype

Unfolded size: 20.5 × 350 cm

ALZhIR (the abbreviation stands for Akmolinsk Camp for Wives of “Traitors to the Motherland”; in Russian, the title sounds identical to Algeria) follows the documentary poetic text by Egana Jabbarova, dedicated to 44 Azerbaijani female prisoners. Bogomolova expands this story into a universal narrative about the camp that existed in Soviet-era Kazakhstan from 1937 to 1953 and encompasses the fates of thousands of other women who became detained solely because they were members of families of so-alleged “traitors to the Motherland”.

The story in the book is constructed on several levels: through the Jabbarova’s text itself; through a visual series in which illustrations based on rare documentary images of the camp; and through the material of the book. Wormwood, from which the object’s paper was made, is a symbolic plant associated with ancestral memory and also represents widow’s grass. The cover material — reed — refers to the harsh living conditions of the camp.