Artist Biography

Alexander Ugay is a Kazakh-Korean photographer, video artist and creator of “cinema-objects” within experimental collective Bronepoezd, which means “armed train” in Kazakh, of which he is one of the founders alongside Roman Maskalev. One of the most active figures in the Kazakh art scene, he was educated at St. Petersburg University and Bishnek University in Kyrgyzstan.

He comes from a Korean family deported to Central Asia during the 1930s. Through his work Ugay explores questions concerning memory and nostalgia, with a focus on examining the interaction of history with the present and the future through photography and more recently, installation. His simultaneous portrayal of the past and the present is reflected via his 8-16 mm film camera manufactured during the Soviet era combined with a modern digital recording device.