Tent of Imagination: Jonim
Denis Davydov
2022-2024
Jonim is the first series within Tent of Imagination and the first appearance of the characters who would later inhabit the artist’s digital theatre. Twins Hasan and Husan, young women, dancers, musicians and people encountered on the street appear as found characters — observed individuals gradually detached from their biographies and transformed into collective figures.
At the centre of the series are theatre and dance. Dance in Central Asia has a long and complex history, shaped by urban celebrations, courts, caravan routes and cultural exchange along the Silk Road. Over time, it also became one of the region’s most recognisable images — a colourful expression of hospitality and celebration, continually reproduced through media, tourism and official ceremonies. A complex choreography of gestures becomes an instantly recognisable image of happiness. This contradiction forms the basis of the first works in the series. The characters dance, play musical instruments and move through different spaces, yet the narrative never progresses. Short scenes repeat in an endless montage, recalling the accelerated scroll of a social media feed. It is a theatre with no exit: an endless flow of celebration, colour, movement and smiles.
Jonim also introduces the khushtak — small ceramic whistles shaped as animals and mythical creatures. Within the digital theatre, these modest craft objects come alive and grow to a gigantic, exaggerated scale. Their bodies are formed from clay, earth, stone and vegetation, as if an archaeological myth had acquired a body and returned to the present. What has survived as a small decorative object becomes a creature again — strange, monumental and almost alive.
This transformation becomes one of the recurring principles of Tent of Imagination. A dance, an ornament, a handmade object or a person encountered by chance may first appear as a bright, almost decorative image, but gradually reveal fragments of a more complex cultural memory. Decoration does not conceal history here — it becomes a way of preserving it.
The series has been presented across large-scale digital screens in New York, Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as in exhibition spaces and solo presentations. Jonim became the starting point for the further development of Tent of Imagination: characters, gestures and cultural forms first brought together here would later move from one work to another, forming the recurring troupe of a digital travelling theatre.
This transformation becomes one of the recurring principles of Tent of Imagination. A dance, an ornament, a handmade object or a person encountered by chance may first appear as a bright, almost decorative image, but gradually reveal fragments of a more complex cultural memory. Decoration does not conceal history here — it becomes a way of preserving it.
The series has been presented across large-scale digital screens in New York, Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as in exhibition spaces and solo presentations. Jonim became the starting point for the further development of Tent of Imagination: characters, gestures and cultural forms first brought together here would later move from one work to another, forming the recurring troupe of a digital travelling theatre.
GUZAL
Guzal (from the series JONIM), 2022
Computer-generated image
Edition of 5 + 2AP
Courtesy of the Artist
Computer-generated image
Edition of 5 + 2AP
Courtesy of the Artist
HASAN HUSAN
Hasan Husan (from the series JONIM), 2022
Computer-generated image
Edition of 5 + 2AP
Courtesy of the Artist
Computer-generated image
Edition of 5 + 2AP
Courtesy of the Artist
LOLA
Lola (from the series JONIM), 2022
Computer-generated image
Edition of 5 + 2AP
Courtesy of the Artist
Computer-generated image
Edition of 5 + 2AP
Courtesy of the Artist
Project team
CG visualisation and animation:
Konstantin Gromov, Eugeniy Padalkin
Video Editing: Danya Smirnov
Sound: Farhad Farzali
Konstantin Gromov, Eugeniy Padalkin
Video Editing: Danya Smirnov
Sound: Farhad Farzali