Formaldehyde Dreams

There’s an old, Soviet-era, biology museum on the campus of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Maybe created in the 1950’s, 1960’s, ’70’s, who knows? For teaching students, the public, no one anymore? Whatever its original purpose, the museum’s collection is still mostly intact and available for appreciation and study.

One long hallway is lined with cases devoted to sea, aquatic life. Fish, snakes, lizards, frogs, sometimes in glass vials, filled with formaldehyde. The specimens and vials have been placed in appropriate environments, creating a fantasy, still life effect.

Kazakhstan In Miniature At The Atameken Map

In the Kazakhstan capital city of Astana, there’s a large 3D map attraction of various important sites from around the country. It feels like a miniature golf course, if the amusement included hotels, dams, oil rigs, sculptures, monuments, offices, a stranded ship on a dried up sea, open pit mining, mosques. The site is part history, part architecture, part robust model making that has to survive outside through harsh winters.

Shot at certain angles and perspectives, the models take on an etherial look. The dream of the miniature makers, the dream of a nation.

The Mysterious Rooms At Yangiobod Bozor

Yangiobod is a giant open air, flea market in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. It oozes near railroad tracks and in and around old warehouses. The warehouses are used for storage, some shops, places for industrial parts, fish, old communist items, even a café.

There’s an Old Master painting quality to the settings, a quiet, grand, darkened light vibe to the spaces. Sense of time and place fades away.

Animal Cages At The Tashkent Zoo

The Tashkent zoo in Uzbekistan has a wonderful collection of handcrafted animal cages, mostly for amphibians and apes. There are painted walls to look like exotic jungle flora, craggy rock formations of concrete. The environments take on their own aura, full of abstract details and mystery. When captured in a photograph, the elements are transformed into a landscape painting.