The first large-scale sound art Biennale in the history of Kazakhstan will open in the Central Exhibition Hall of Almaty and take place in several different venues. The biennial program will include three concerts with international and Kazakh artists, five audiovisual site-specific installations as well as a number of educational initiatives and performances.Click here to see the full program of the Biennale.

The Ykhlas folk musical Instruments museum will host an exhibition by Kyzyl Tractor, one of the earliest art groups of Kazakhstan. The focus of the artists' research is the sound as a way of reuniting with the oral tradition and an attempt to deconstruct it. It refers to some kind of intangible legacy that roams the steppe along with people and consequently fixes the collective memory. These reflections on the sound nature can be found in the paintings, sculptures and performances of the group.

According to music historian Saida Yelemanova "a ritual is the oldest foundation of human culture, and it contains Sound as one of its most important components", so the audience cannot stop noticing the connection between the Ritual and the Sound in the early artworks by Kyzyl Tractor. At the same time, it is important to note that the artists do not produce sound art through New Media, recording technologies or sound manipulation; they do not use speakers or any other equipment in their artworks. It is rather about gaining a personal spiritual experience through the sound that artists extract either from themselves or from the instruments that were often made by the hands of one of the art group members Moldakul Narymbetov with organic materials such as wood, stones or leather.

Kyzyl Tractor art group was established between 1980s - 1990s by Vitaliy Simakov, a college professor and member of the spatial-structural composition school. In the first few years, the participants and the very name of the group often changed, but by the mid-1990s the artists association was formed in the way we know it today.

Smail Bayaliyev, Said Atabekov, Vitaliy Simakov, Arystanbek Shalbayev and now deceased Moldakul Narymbetov extensively traveled, experimented, lived and worked together until the mid-2000s, after that the artists started to focus more on their individual careers. During the time of their collaboration the Tractor team invented an experimental and vibrant language of expression at the intersection between performance, painting, sculpture and video art.

Within the Asia Contemporary Art Week New York in 2018 MANA Contemporary hosted the most important retrospective of the artworks by Kyzyl Tractor, one of the main curators was Leeza Ahmady. Some of the artworks of the exhibition «Thinking Collections: Telling Tales» are now on view as a part of Sound Off exhibition.

Founded in 2011, the non-profit organization Eurasian Cultural Alliance is engaged in the support and development of contemporary art in Kazakhstan. We are trying in every way to stimulate the growth of the creative economy, improve the social and economic indicators of key players in the region in the field of culture, as well as promote the integration of Kazakhstan's identity into a broader global context.

In the past 11 years Eurasian Cultural Alliance supported tens of exhibitions, festivals of contemporary art, a series of educational initiatives and projects in and outside of Kazakhstan.