A contemporary Kazakhstani photographer and video artist, member of the "Karaganda Press Photo" club (late 1990s). Key methods in his work include photo documentation, social criticism, observation, analysis, reflection, and denunciation. Key themes are social insecurity, injustice, everyday life, surrounding reality, and history.
V. Kaliyev graduated from Karaganda State Technical University (specialising in mining engineering, 1992–1997) and has been working as a photographer in print media since 1999. He is a recipient of the "Batyrkhan Shukenov Foundation" scholarship. In 2010, he won a grant and organised his first solo photo exhibition titled "Labour Migration: Realities and Prospects" (Karaganda).
When creating his photographs, V. Kaliyev immerses himself in the subject of his research and conducts in-depth interviews with the subjects of his photographs. To participate in the photo exhibition "1937: Territory of Memory – Zhoktau" (2013), he studied the topic of ethnic repression and the resettlement of his grandfather’s relatives from the Far East to Kazakhstan. The artist raises the issues of social insecurity, isolation, vulnerability, and loneliness in his study of the lives of migrant workers employed on construction sites and cotton plantations ("Ours – Strangers", 2013). Kaliyev’s focus on observing everyday life is also reflected in his work with urban space, where he captures surrounding reality ("That’s How It Is", 2013).
In the early 2000s, Kaliyev took part in a number of seminars and master classes on photography and video art: "How to Make Video Art" (SCCA, Almaty); the master class "Pulse of the City-2" ("Desht-i-Art" Centre, Karaganda); the workshop "Aral Front" (Almaty); the international workshop "Asia Extreme. The Non-Silk Road" (Almaty); the seminar "Journalistic Investigation" (Karaganda); and the seminar "Art of the 20th Century" ("Desht-i-Art" Centre, Karaganda).
His works have been exhibited in Kazakhstan and abroad: "Off the Silk Road: No Mad’s Land" (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 2002); the SCCA video art festival "Inventory" (German Theatre, Almaty, 2002); "Eurasian Syndrome" (Karaganda, Yekaterinburg–Nizhny Tagil, 2002); "Re-orientation" ("ACC" Gallery, Weimar, 2002); "1937: Territory of Memory – Zhoktau" (A. Kasteev State Museum of Art, Almaty, 2013).
Information about V. Kaliyev is stored in the Documentation project collection — the archive of the Soros Center for Contemporary Art – Almaty (SCCA).
Photograph provided by Valeriy Kaliyev