Louise Amelie: Missing Member: Киргизстан – A Country on the Move

What does migration mean for those, who stay behind?

Louise Amelie's documentary photo series is an artistic exploration of the global phenomenon of migration and its many facets, which are often ignored in European migration politics. Migration has always been an integral part of human experience and will continue to be. Yet in public discourse it is presented as an aberration, while the existence of nation-state borders is hardly ever questioned. On the globe, Kyrgyzstan nestles inconspicuously next to Kazakhstan and China, but on the ground the vastness and heights of the mountains seem endless. In contrast to the natural beauty, prefabricated housing estates spring up in the capital, Bishkek. Here lives a young population that, despite all the adversities of post-Soviet reality, faces the world with great confidence. In a collection of portraying texts and photographs that foreground the individual stories, the book is an expression of solidarity and empathy, and shows that migration can mean both an opportunity as well as the painful loss of a beloved Missing Member.

About the Author:

The artistic focus of director and photographer Louise Amelie (*1991, Berlin) is on documentary and street photography. Her series, shot in the USA between 2016 and 2020, have been exhibited internationally and have been awarded the German Photo Book Prize and the Belfast Photo Festival. Since 2021, she has been exploring the theme of post-Soviet identity and migration in Central Asia, spending two and a half months in Kyrgyzstan for this project.