Project 42
Unsettling Connections - Leyli Alakbarova
March 1st - March 28th, opening on Saturday, March 1st from 19h
Unsettling Connections is a short film constructed from the memories of three women. These memories form the storyline, emerging from bodily experiences, heard stories, and made-up narratives. They are both deeply personal and universally shared.
The work on the film began with each protagonist receiving the same set of questions about their relationships with their mothers. Their responses were then fragmented, reshaped, distorted, and woven together, resulting in a new text that became the foundation for the film’s imagery.
As the visuals unfold, the viewer continuously drifts between reality and fiction, losing the certainty of what is remembered and what is imagined.
Objects and photographs featured throughout the film are essential elements of its visual landscape, each contributing to the narrative that traces Leyli’s origins, reaching back to her Soviet childhood. These fragments serve to evoke and interrogate the layers of personal and cultural history embedded in her work.
The film moves between intimacy and rupture, presence and absence, tenderness and tension. The mother is both anchor and echo—always present, yet never fully grasped. Memory clings, erodes, and reforms.
Unsettling Connections features music from "If places were sounds" by Les Biologistes Marins.
Leyli Alakbarova
Leyli is a multidisciplinary artist from Baku, Azerbaijan. In 2003 she received a Bachelor's degree in Architecture from Civil Engineering University in Baku, Azerbaijan. She pursued her career as a Photographer between 2013-2019, she had a solo photography show in 2014 and was a part of a number of group shows including “Names” and “A doll’s house”. Following her solo photography exhibition “Eyes reflecting history” she was awarded “Documentary Photographer of the year” by the Photographers Union of Azerbaijan in 2020.
She has exhibited her textile work in the Museum of Modern Art in Baku, Azerbaijan (2022) and in the international group art show “O” on gender equality (December 2022.) Her textile series was a part of the group show “Metacode” in the Museum of Azerbaijani painting XX-XXI centuries (2022). Her short film “The gift” was a part of the program of Balkan Film Festival in Stockholm (2022), her short films were screened during Loop Festival City Screen (2023).
Leyli is a graduate of the Metafora Studio Arts program. Presently she is dedicated to advancing her textile practice in Escola Massana, Barcelona.