A cyber performance staged on a digital backdrop of a glowing bonfire and an echoing hall. In nomadic tradition, the wisdom of the land is passed down through generations via oral storytelling. However, such performances have become obsolete, replaced by written texts and books. This story is conceptualised from a liminal perspective, intertwining contemporary nomadic identity with ray-traced worlds that resemble the past and future.
"The Story of a Running Horse" is inspired by the real-life phenomenon of a running horse, "Guiguul Mori" (Гүйгүүл Морь), in which a Mongolian horse runs vast distances to its place of birth.
Concept, story, sound design, editing, and virtual production: Shuree Sarantuya · 3D animations: Mixamo · Sound effects: Soundly · Voice-over: Eleven Labs · 3D assets and textures: Amitesh Nandan, Quixel Megascans, Rob Tuytel · Made with: Unreal Engine, Marvelous Designer · Funded by: CIFRA PLUS PORTAL LLC
Liminal beings are those who are in between homes, places, jobs, apartments, dreams, and realities — beings that cannot easily be placed into a single category and that reside in homes existing between contemporary nomadism and urban houselessness.
For many, camping becomes a temporary departure from the constraints of urban life — a curated experience where one can enjoy nature's beauty while still cocooned in familiar comforts. The act of camping becomes a tangible embodiment of modern atavism: the re-emergence of traits or characteristics reminiscent of ancestral behaviour.
Why do we enjoy bird watching, stargazing, hunting, hiking, horse riding, fishing, or simply walking in nature? The romantic concept of the wilderness is a side effect of domestication, taking monumental forms and serving as a stage for those craving a dose of atavism — stages like parks, reservoirs, resorts, and gardens, used even by nearby animals accustomed to foraging for leftover breadcrumbs or nesting materials.
Project Supervisor: Prof. Zilvinas Lilas, Prof. Dr. Lilian Haberer, and Daniel Burkhardt
A standalone video version of "Liminal Beings and Curse of Staged Atavism". The multi-channel video installation is presented here as a single continuous video, preserving the full experience.
Drawing on a private archive of childhood photographs, the work moves through a series of Instagram posts reflecting on my family's sedentarisation and their relationship with camping.
This work is dedicated to those affected by the Stalinist Repression (1937–1939), which targeted nomadic herders, Buddhist monks, and ethnic minority peoples of Mongolia.
An experimental short film shot in a game engine. Liminal beings are those that cannot easily be placed into a single category of existence. The film takes a comprehensive look at eleven different homes of liminal beings that exist between contemporary nomadism and urban houselessness.
Home is a concept that extends beyond the traditional notion of a physical dwelling. Nomads view home as habitable land rather than a fixed structure — tied to a sense of mobility and freedom, rather than a specific address or set of possessions. As urbanisation and economic pressures grow, the traditional idea of home becomes increasingly difficult to sustain, resulting in a poverty-driven re-nomadisation of sedentary people, particularly in hyper-urbanised areas.
Produced at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne · Script based on "The Three Little Pigs" by James Halliwell-Phillipps (1886) · Project Coordinator: Daniel Burkhardt · Music & Sound Design: Shuree Sarantuya · Sound Design & Mixing: Judith Nordbrock · Colour Grading: Fabiana Cardalda
An experimental video work shot inside a game engine, based on the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum's Mongolian collection of tantric Buddhist items — 29 artefacts acquired from Mongolia in 1922. Inspired by the timeline of their acquisition, the work is divided into three parts:
Part I: 1922 – Red is the Color of the Monastic Robe. The time of political and social transformation in Buddhist Mongolia — eradicating religious and nomadic influences for an atheist utopia.
Part II: 1932 – Red is the Color of Blood. The time of Stalinist repression and the elimination of ethnic and religious organisations — sedentarisation and urbanisation.
Part III: 1942 – Red is the Color of the Capital. The time of Ulaanbaatar (translated from Mongolian: Red Hero) — hopes of reaching the ideals of sedentary modernity.
With Anastasia Comănescu, Camilla Noell, Bijun Cao, Cate Lartey, Chaya Shen, Hansol Kang & Gyeongmin Ru, Henri Schlößer, Ivonne Sheen, Jakob Mönch, Jannik Bergfeld, Jazmin Rojas Forero, Joshua Karan Singh, Kihuun Park, Lisa Felden, Luisa C. Monego, Maja Funke, Mandkhai Ariunbold, Maria Renee Morales Garcia, Martina Parisi, Mary Mikaelyan, Merle Borgmann, Mohamad Sabbah, Shuree Sarantuya, Suyeon Kim, Ting Chun Liu, Tuğba Durukan, Youssef Mahfouz, Yuna-Lee Pfau, Zahraa Khanafer · Supported by Agustina Andreoletti, Mariana Castillo Deball and Sam Hopkins · Part of Leaky Archive, developed within dive in. Programm für digitale Interaktionen of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes, with funding by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) through NEUSTART KULTUR · Supported by the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia (Medienwerk.NRW) and the City of Cologne · Project partner: Academy of Media Arts Cologne · Exhibition partner: University of Fine Arts Münster
A poem gives form to a new entity called the "Technonomad" — born from the devastating impact of resource extraction on the lands of indigenous and nomadic communities.
Resource conflicts, shifting border policies, and urban aspirations force these communities into assimilation and violent sedentarisation, at the cost of future generations. The project spans video, illustration, and web art.
A poem written in a language I can no longer read — so forgotten that its alphabet now resembles alien patterns or markings.
Written in a traditional Mongolian script no longer used in either Mongolia or Inner Mongolia, the poem reads: "I am not a goat, I am not a machine — I am one of the last nomads."
This project is dedicated to the nomadic people whose livelihoods depend primarily on herding cashmere goats. The imbalance of herds under mono-herding practices has devastating effects on grazing land, contributing to desertification. Both Mongolia and Inner Mongolia (an autonomous region of China) are among the world's largest producers of raw cashmere.
This project is foremost an artistic research paper about the air pollution of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Yurt districts, cashmere goats, an urban population navigating the meaning of sedentarization.
The project explores how the over- or under-balance — or utter absence — of even one minor factor can cause irreversible damage to the conditions of nature and its inhabitants. The text combines a research paper, illustrations, feminist theory, environmental activism, and hypothetical narrative conversations.