{VEM academic-artist residency collaboration: Negar Behzadi & Kate Jessop // Nadirah}

Nadirah is a collaborative project between a feminist geographer, Negar Elodie Behzadi, and an animation artist, Kate Jessop. The project aims to create an animated ethnographic portrait of one stigmatised female coal miner in Tajikistan: Nadirah. Based on ethnographic research in a coal mining community undertaken by Negar in 2014-5 where women miners were stigmatised and excluded, this portrait aims to make visible otherwise invisibilised stories of shame. In particular, it aims to raise awareness of issues of gender and exclusion in a context of resource extraction and economic desolation.

The photos below capture Negar and Kate’s first encounters and the development phase of the project – including  the exchange of stories, photographs, films, articles about life in this extractive landscape in Tajikistan. Negar and Kate wrote the short voice-over for the film in a process of back and forth, and started imagining the visual environment that will drive the final piece.

words Negar, images Ly, animation to follow Kate